


happiness, more or less

by TheKnittingJedi



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Amnesia, Angst, Aziraphale is a ghost, Background Character Death, Consensual Possession, Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Good Omens Rom Com Event, Happy Ending, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, crowley's trying his best okay, i swear this is still mostly a comedy, mutual annoyances to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:54:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23663452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnittingJedi/pseuds/TheKnittingJedi
Summary: Renting a flat is all fun and games until you fall in love with the ghost haunting it.An adaptation of the 2005 romcomJust Like Heaven.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 296
Kudos: 425
Collections: Good Omens Human AUs, Good Omens Rom Com Event





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags! This is overall fun, romantic and probably quite weird, but it's going into some dark places at times. I'll put more specific content warnings at the beginning of each chapter.
> 
> Art by the lovely [sparvierosart](https://sparvierosart.tumblr.com/). Go shower her with love on her blog!
> 
> [seekwill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekwill/pseuds/seekwill) held my hand through this and I cannot be more grateful for her kind guidance and her reassurance. [mia-ugly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia_ugly/pseuds/mia_ugly)'s enthusiasm about this story was a gift. They're both amazing and I am stoked they even talk to me.
> 
> Title from The Verve's _Lucky Man_. Every day's a good day to be soft and nostalgic on main.

There was someone in the bookshop.

It was Crowley’s first night in the flat on the first floor, and he was still getting accustomed to his new home’s noises. And there were many of them: loud pipes, creaking wood fixtures, the rhythmic bangs of the furnace, which almost made him jump off his chair, earlier, as he was having dinner in the sparsely furnished kitchen.

The many cons of the flat — and he was definitely going to complain to his landlady first thing in the morning — were balanced by a huge pro: the sublet was month-to-month. Crowley’s anxiety about where he would be a year from now, when he could barely function on a day-to-day basis? Gone. (Well, mostly. It was him we were talking about.)

Anyway, the main point was that there was someone in the bookshop.

As the cranky and not at all personable real estate agent had explained to him, the flat used to be where the owner of the antiquarian bookshop on the ground floor lived. 

“Don’t worry about the shop,” the woman had said curtly, nodding to a closed door as she led him up a flight of stairs. They had used the back door: the main entrance, she had explained, was through the bookshop, and he wasn’t allowed there. “The landlady will decide what to do about it once everything is sorted.”

Crowley had been about to ask what ‘everything’ was, then he remembered he didn’t care.

Now he was staring at the ceiling of his new bedroom, where he had stopped trying to sleep on the lumpy mattress and settled on cataloguing the night’s noises instead. A bus rolling down the street: check. The intermittent buzzing of the old refrigerator: accounted for. The television his neighbours kept at an annoyingly high volume: sadly, to be expected. Steps on the ground floor: startling, unforeseen, worrying. 

After a moment, Crowley asked himself what the landlady would say if someone broke into the shop on his first night as a new tenant.

Fine, he would investigate. He was going to complain the whole time, though.

He put an ancient t-shirt over the threadbare tracksuit pants he slept in ever since his nightwear became nothing but his own business. He picked up his sunglasses from the nightstand and wore those, too. He stopped in the kitchen — the only other room in the flat, except for the bathroom — on his way to the stairs. He should probably grab something to use as a weapon, if someone ill-intentioned had really broken into the shop downstairs. 

A knife seemed too overdramatic, so he settled on one of the mugs on display on the counter. The person in charge of taking away the previous owner’s belongings did a shitty job, but that meant Crowley needn’t bother to take his own things out of the cardboard boxes.

The mug was white, except for where a childish hand had scribbled something with multi-coloured paint. Its handle was oddly shaped in the form of angel wings. Crowley shrugged: it would do.

He stopped in front of the door, scratching his chin. Was he going to turn the light on? It wouldn’t be very stealthy, but he wasn’t going to come down those stairs in the dark while he was about to potentially confront a criminal. Lights on it was.

He was opening the door when he remembered he didn’t have the key to the bookshop door. That would put a hamper on his plan to burst in on the trespasser. But maybe… The unpleasant real estate agent had tossed him a bunch of keys on a ring, without bothering to explain to him what they opened. Maybe the key to the bookshop backdoor was among them? If the same person who didn’t care about leaving the previous owner’s possessions in the flat was in charge of selecting the keys, there was a concrete chance.

He put aside the keys to the back door, the flat, the basement and the mailbox, and then, with the most promising candidate in one hand and the mug in the other, he opened the door.

His shout was so loud it probably awoke the whole neighbourhood. But the man in front of him on the other side of the door shouted even louder, so the blame was at least to be shared.

“Fucking _Christ_ on a bicycle,” Crowley wheezed, gasping for air. “Who the hell are you?”

Instead of answering, the man looked alarmed. “There's nothing worth stealing here. There's no money, no drugs. And I definitely have no rare, priceless books.”

Leaning on the wall, Crowley watched the stranger on his doorstep. He took in the white hair (or maybe light blond, he didn’t look _that_ old) and the wide, blue eyes, the perfectly ironed shirt with the neat little bowtie, the coat and vest that made him look a little overdressed. And was that a pocket-watch chain?

Sure, the man looked respectable, but what was he doing in Crowley’s house in the middle of the night? And, more importantly, why was he looking at Crowley as if _he_ was the intruder?

“I'm not stealing anything,” Crowley rectified. He straightened his spine, not wanting to look defensive.

The man raised his hands, appeasing but still agitated. “That’s… fantastic, my dear. Tip-top. I’m sure there's a homeless shelter nearby. I will give you money for cab fare and a good meal, how does that sound?”

The full meaning of what the man was implying finally made it through Crowley’s brain. “Uh, I’m not homeless. I live here.”

The stranger was still hovering fretfully on the doorstep, clearly wanting to come in but perhaps waiting for an invite. Which was peculiar, since _for some reason_ he thought he lived there. “Dreadfully sorry, but you can't live here. This is my flat.”

“No, it’s _my_ flat. How did you get in?” Crowley smacked his forehead. He was so slow, sometimes, but he always got there in the end. “Oh, fuck, I see.”

The man looked reproachfully at him when Crowley swore, eyebrows knitted and lips primly pressed together. “See what?”

Looking at him, Crowley stretched his arms outward, like it should have been obvious. “Rent scam, right?”

The stranger’s eyebrows went even higher. “What on Earth are you talking about?”

Crowley was fuming. How could he have been so dumb, when he’d promised himself he would be careful, this time? Of course: the flat’s rent was a bargain, given the neighbourhood it was in. “There's probably five other people who paid deposits and got the keys. I _knew_ that real estate agent looked dodgy.”

The man appeared to briefly consider what Crowley was saying out of sheer politeness, then shook his head and, with the kind smile of a ticket inspector who explains you are in the wrong seat, and would you kindly move over to your assigned place, he replied: “I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. You see, I don’t just live here. I _own_ this place. And all these things are mine.” Overcoming his hesitations, the man stepped inside the apartment and craned his head to look into the kitchen. 

Crowley was too dumbstruck to stop him. “Yeah... What?”

“These are my possessions. This is my furniture, my table, my radio. And those,” he adds, gaining enough confidence to look past the bedroom door, “are my sheets, my books… Wait, where are my books?” 

On the nightstand, Crowley’s empty glass of water stood beside the bottle of his sleeping pills. 

“There was a pile of books here. Where are they?”

Crowley, who was following him at a cautious distance, stopped. 

What if he was right? What if the apartment had been, through some bureaucratic fuckup, rented while the rightful owner was still living in it? Or, _or_ , what if the man was a dangerous lunatic who had somehow forced the door downstairs open and was now in his flat, spouting delusional nonsense? “There were no books here when I moved in,” Crowley said slowly.

“No, no.” There was panic in the man’s voice, now. “That’s enough, I’m calling the police.” He reached out for the landline, an ancient appliance fixed to the wall right above the nightstand. 

_Oh, so that’s not just for show_ , Crowley thought. It had a rotary dial, for fuck’s sake.

It was the last coherent thought Crowley had for a while.

Because the man’s hand went _straight through the phone_.

They both stood there, nonplussed. Then the man tried again, with the same result. 

“Excuse me, what did you do to my phone?”

Crowley could only stare at him, open-mouthed.

The stranger was the first to bounce back. “You know what, I am going to use the one in the kitchen,” he said, and he went out of the bedroom, past Crowley.

Who turned around, and faced an empty corridor.

He was alone in the flat again.

A few long seconds passed by, after which he murmured breathlessly: “What the _fuck_?”

* * *

“Hello, ma’am? Anthony Crowley here.”

Crowley had kept all the lights on and stared at the bedroom ceiling all night long, trying to figure out the impossible. Then, when the sun came up, he had to wait until reasonable business hours to call the real estate agency and hunt down the agent who had shown him the flat and made him sign the lease. 

Crowley kept a pragmatic, even tone as he went on: “The people who sublet this apartment to me… Do you have their number?”

The woman on the other end of the phone sighed. “What, is something wrong already?”

_No, no, not at all, but do they know about the ghost in their flat? He is very polite, but it may have been something to address in the contract._ “I was just wondering about the previous tenant, that’s all.”

The agent’s snort told him all he needed to know about what she thought of being bothered by such idle inquiries. “The woman I dealt with didn’t want to talk about it. Some kind of tragedy in the family, apparently.” She said ‘tragedy’ like it was a trivial inconvenience. “I didn’t press for details because, frankly, I don’t need the drama.”

Crowley had to force himself to ask his next question. “You think someone… died?”

“You better hope so, that’s the only way you’re getting a real lease instead of this month-to-month deal.”

_Whoa!_ “What the…”

“Oh, come on, Crowley, grow up. The place is small, yes, but it’s cheap and comfortable. For the location itself, they should demand at least double of what they’re asking. It’s a steal. Many people would kill for a lot less.”

Trying to ignore the ache that was building up inside his chest, Crowley ended the call with the real estate agent from Hell and lowered his forehead until it was resting on the kitchen table. He took a couple of deep breaths with his eyes closed, as the least useless of his many therapists taught him to do every time someone brought up the subject of death. It had never worked so far, but at least he was doing _something_.

In the morning light, with the sun's rays gently touching the plants he had brought over and scattered between this room and the bathroom, the kitchen looked much cosier than it did last night. It looked like a place where a person could actually live. Where Crowley could live. At least for a month.

And what if last night had been the product of exhaustion and lack of sleep? He was in his late thirties but felt a hundred years old. He hadn’t had a whole, uninterrupted night of sleep since… Well. No wonder he had started seeing things.

But were hallucinations supposed to be so vivid? And did they usually engage in heated and surreal discussions? 

Crowley couldn’t wipe from his memory the way the ma— the gho— _the hallucination_ had looked when his hand had gone through the phone. He seemed so lost, like he had the wind knocked out of him.

Well, Crowley had nothing to do, and this was the first interesting thing that had happened to him in months. He might as well investigate a little. 

He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. They felt sore and bloodshot. But that’s what the sunglasses were for.

* * *

“Can I help you with anything?”

The voice with the American accent came from over his shoulder and almost made him jump out of his own skin. Crowley turned around to see one of the bookstore’s employees (her name tag was an incomprehensible scribble) looking at him behind a huge pair of glasses. Her soft lips were pressed in a determined line and her lush dark hair was piled on the top of her head.

“No,” Crowley blurted out. It was embarrassing enough to be perusing the Mystical & Occult section of the Tottenham Court Waterstones. He didn’t mean for it to become a public affair.

The bookstore employee was not discouraged by his words, nor by his defensive posture, and took a shameless glance at the book he had pulled out of the shelf. “That’s a little dated,” she commented, hands clasped behind her back.

Crowley frowned. She looked about to join a women's suffrage march, with that long, elegant blue dress, but had such a self-assured demeanour that he wouldn’t have hesitated to ask her for directions.

He cleared his throat. “Do you… do you believe in this stuff?”

She looked at him with narrowed eyes, as if she knew all his secrets. What the hell was the name on the tag? Something long, possibly starting with an A. “Well, you don’t…” She blinked. “Until you do. Now, let’s see.” She moved her unnerving gaze to the shelf in front of them and started pulling out books. “I recommend the Agnes Nutter. She’s never wrong. And this will be way more helpful than… whatever you’ve picked,” she added, casting an unconvinced look at the book he was looking at before her surprise attack.

Gingerly, Crowley put it back.

“So, what kind of encounter have you had?”

Crowley looked at the employee with horror as he staggered under an armful of books. “Excuse me?”

“Ectoplasm? A vision? There’s a killer séance book, if you’re into communication.”

Crowley’s mind went back to the very outspoken apparition. “Communicating’s not his problem.”

A knowing smile softened the young woman’s lips. Alexandra? No, that wasn’t it. “I see. I have exactly what you need.” She turned around, looking intently at the shelf before grabbing half of its contents in one fell swoop and dumping another few pounds of what Crowley suspected was complete hogwash into his arms.

* * *

Dangling a pendulum in his kitchen may not have been most people’s idea of a fun Friday night, but Crowley had had worse.

He cast a look at the book open on the table, trying not to think about how he must look. He cleared his throat. _What the hell am I doing…_ “Spirit, if you can hear me, can we, uhm… have a little chat?”

He braced himself, even if he didn’t know what to expect.

When, of course, nothing happened, he exhaled from his nose. “Come on, I know you’re here.”

Still nothing. He suddenly saw himself from outside, a sad, delusional, ageing man alone in an underfurnished kitchen, talking to himself.

No, not to himself.

_We need to be rational about this._ He ignored the way the word ‘rational’ arched an eyebrow, objecting to the context it found itself used in. _Think, Crowley. He is…_ was… _a bookshop owner._

He glanced at the open book on the kitchen table. “Look, I know you’re there. I have a book, here, a lovely old book, and I’m going to dog-ear its page…”

“Don’t you dare!”

“A-ha!” Crowley looked into the scandalised face of the man from last night, who didn’t seem at all ruffled by the fact that he had just materialised out of thin air. 

Crowley put the pendulum down and left the book alone. He strived for gentle but firm. “Uhm, hello? We need to talk.”

The man’s brow was furrowed and his arms crossed, but otherwise he looked perfectly at ease. “About what?”

“Have you noticed something… different about the way you’re spending your days?”

A pair of blond eyebrows were arched in self-righteous amazement. “Well, yes, it’s weird having a stranger in your home, using your cups” — he shot a pointed look at the mug with the wing-shaped handle, which was minding its own business on the kitchen table — “and sleeping in your bed.”

“That’s not… Fine. Let’s start over.” He got up and extended a hand, as if he went around every day introducing himself to ghosts. How would that even work? “Hello, I’m Anthony Crowley. And you are…?”

Instead of shaking his hand, the ghost took a step back and opened his mouth to answer. “I am…” Then he stopped, confused. His eyes fell on the mug again, and he straightened. “Aziraphale. My name is Aziraphale.”

Lowering his hand, Crowley turned to the mug. On the white ceramic, a childish hand had scribbled the name the ghost had just uttered. “You didn’t know that. You had to read that.” _And what kind of name is that, anyway?_

Hands primly joined in front of him, the ghost bristled. “Are you suggesting I would forget my own name?”

After having hurriedly but comprehensively increased his education in all things mystic after his trip to Waterstones, Crowley had anticipated this was going to be a shot in the dark. But man, was it exhausting. “Okay. What’s the last thing you remember? When did you last speak to someone? Other than me, I mean.”

“The… the other day, in the shop.” The man’s eyelids fluttered. “Yes, the other day.”

“Fine. And, when you’re not here… what do you do?”

“Certainly more than _you_ do, lazing about in the flat all day.” He was properly incensed, now.

Crowley noticed that, as he stepped forward, the ghost retreated towards the kitchen table. Which he never hit. He just… floated through the wood, the book and the angel-themed mug. “Don’t stray from the point, ghost.”

“My name is Aziraphale!”

“I’m not learning the riddle you have for a name. Let me ask you, how do you explain that?”

The ghost looked to where Crowley was pointing and finally noticed that the lower half of his body had disappeared under the wooden table. There was a beat, and then: “Oh, good Lord.”

This was going to be the hardest part. Not that any part of it had been a walk in the park. “Listen to me carefully. Do you remember anything dramatic happening to you recently?” Crowley inhaled. “Did it ever occur to you that you may be d-dead?”

The ghost — Azira-whatever-it-was — looked up. “I _beg_ your _pardon_ ? I am not dead. I would _know_ if I was _dead_.”

_Yeah, keep repeating that word._ “I wouldn’t be so sure. I’ve read a lot on the subject, and…”

“What did you do to me?” the ghost cut him off, eyes widening, having shocked himself with his own bad manners.

“I didn’t do anything! I just want you out of my house.”

“This is my house!” And he stepped forward, trying to push Crowley.

It all happened too fast for him to dodge or step back, but it turned out there was no need: the ghost’s hands went right through him, and then the ghost’s whole body. It was like a cold shower, a horrible sensation that he’d be happy to never experience again, ever.

It was also the first time he felt… _something_ in what seemed like forever.

But no… oh, no, he wasn’t going to go there.

Crowley closed his eyes and inhaled. “Rest in peace,” he said exhaling, and an actual smile found its way on his lips. He was finally, gloriously alone again.

He opened his eyes and screamed.

The ghost was in front of him again. “I’m not leaving.”

They looked at each other, each of them accepting the challenge.

* * *

It was, Crowley learned, like being followed by an annoying puppy that only he could see. He never left the flat if he could avoid it, so it took a few days before he realised that, for some unfathomable reason, he was the only one who could actually interact with the former owner of his flat. Lucky him.

Crowley also didn’t know when he started to register the little quirks in the ghost’s personality, but he soon found out that he was exceptionally proper, for an ectoplasm. He never followed him into the bathroom, for example (Crowley started taking his scorchingly-hot showers in his underwear nevertheless, as a precaution). The ghost started declaiming poems and quotes from memory as Crowley went around his daily routine, which nowadays consisted mainly of watering his plants and watching Netflix on the bed. After a while, Crowley had to admit he was only pretending to be bothered by him, since the ghost’s taste veered to the surreal and comedic, and sometimes Crowley had to restrain himself from laughing.

Was it fucking strange? Yes. Was it the most disturbing thing to have ever happened in Crowley’s life? Not really.

Once, he was coming out of the bathroom when he caught the ghost peering at the occultism book he’d left open on the kitchen table — a testament to how little he made use of that room. The ghost averted his eyes immediately, pretending not to be absorbed.

Crowley couldn’t resist. “Interesting read?”

“Complete hogwash,” said the supernatural entity, primly straightening his incorporeal bowtie.

Crowley snorted, repressing the smile that threatened to creep onto his face. The next time he passed through the kitchen, he turned the page.

This didn’t mean he had accepted his unexpected flatmate. One of the books he begrudgingly read had the contact of an occult expert living in London. Crowley sighed, steeling himself to scrape the bottom of the barrel, and punched the so-called expert’s number on his phone.

This was why, the next day, Crowley opened the door to a grumpy, sour old-man in a faded green uniform, to the ghost’s disbelief.

“This is low,” he murmured, shocked. “Even for you.”

Crowley grinned.

The smile faded when the expert proved to be all flash and no substance. And even the flash wasn’t something to write home about.

“What seems tae be the problem?” the man asked, without introducing himself.

Crowley lowered the hand he had started to raise. “Well, you see, Mr Shadwell…”

“Witchfinder sergeant Shadwell,” the man corrected him, raising his voice as if he were addressing a platoon.

“Sure,” Crowley said. “The problem’s a ghost, not a witch, though.”

“Aye.” The man nodded mysteriously, like Crowley had given him all the information he needed.

A little while later, Crowley found himself wondering if there was a polite way to usher the man — sergeant. Whatever — out without resorting to violence. 

“Awa’ wi’ ye, foul spirit,” the man shouted repeatedly, going back and forth from room to room, sprinkling holy water from… a metal flask? Was that even water?

Beside Crowley, the ghost was watching the scene with polite interest. “You’re mopping that up,” he said, before leaving.

Crowley put a hand on his face. What he needed was a real expert.

* * *

“That’s it? You’re just going to… sit?”

The Waterstones employee raised an eyebrow.

“I have some holy water left from… nevermind. And, oh, a pendulum?”

She looked at him as if she found him _cute._ “I would love a cup of tea, if that’s no bother.”

As Crowley turned to put the kettle on, the ghost sighed from the doorway. The kitchen looked positively cramped with three people in it, even if one of them didn’t technically occupy any physical space. “She can’t see me either. For some reason, only you can.”

The young woman cocked her head. “There’s something. You were right.”

Crowley tried not to let her surprised tone sting, as he placed the tea tin and two mugs on the counter.

The ghost clicked its tongue. “Really, my dear? The Darjeeling?” 

“Shut up.” Then Crowley darted a look at the woman. “Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you,” he apologised, realising too late how this amendment could make him look even stranger.

But she didn’t even blink. “Yup, definitely a presence.”

The ghost rolled his eyes. “How original, young lady. Tell me more.”

“He’s hostile. He wants you out of here.”

The ghost cocked his head. “Actually, she’s not bad.”

The young woman looked at Crowley. “You want my advice? You should move. I would.”

_What?_ “ _I_ should move?!” 

Meanwhile, the ghost kept nodding. “I like her.”

“You really don’t feel it? The waves of bad energy cramping your aura?”

“I’m not even sure those are real words!” Crowley’s face felt hot. “I’m not moving.”

Not-Alexandra cocked her head inquisitively. “Why not? It’s not even that great a flat.”

The ghost gasped. “Excuse me?”

“Yes, it is,” Crowley added, defensively, ignoring the ghost’s surprised glance. “It’s cosy and well-kept, and it’s in a good location.”

The woman raised her hands. “Whatever, man. It’s your life. Hey, how’s that tea coming along?”

A few minutes later, she was sipping peacefully from a cup. Not the angel wings one — for some reason, Crowley didn’t feel comfortable giving her that one. And he didn’t pick the Darjeeling, either. His hand had hovered over the collection of tea tin in the cupboard, until he reached the English Breakfast’s tin and the ghost, who was watching him with a cocked eyebrow, had nodded.

_This is what I've been reduced to_. “Move out,” he repeated. “That can’t be it. There must be something you can do. Could you please talk to him and tell him to move on?”

An exasperated sigh on his right made him jump. Suddenly the ghost was not on the doorway anymore, but at his side. “Listen to yourself.”

“I’m ignoring you.” He kept talking, drowning the ghost’s indignant sputter. “He doesn’t accept that he’s… you know. I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Because I’m not dead!”

“Then how else do you explain _this_?!” Crowley gestured frantically to the place where the ghost was casually half-leaning on, half-disappearing into the counter.

The young woman put her cup down on the table next to the Agnes Nutter book, with the look of someone who’s trying to ignore a painful migraine. “Wait, what’s happening right now?”

“He keeps… _arguing_ with me. He insists he’s not d-dead.”

“Well, maybe he’s right.” She raised a long, elegant finger to shush Crowley, who had opened his mouth to protest. “This is one of the most alive spirits I’ve ever been around. He’s not going anywhere. And you.” She pointed her finger at him, then waved it to encompass his whole body. Crowley took a step back reflexively, bumping into the counter. “You need to do something about this. You’ve the darkest aura I’ve ever seen. You need to let it go. Have you ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecies?”

Crowley rubbed his chest, where the old, dull ache had returned. No, not returned, just intensified. “I… wha… I cannot _wait_ to let him go, it’s him who won’t leave!”

The Waterstones employee gave him an incredulous look. “I’m not talking about the spirit, dude! I’m talking about whatever you keep bottled inside, that’s eating you alive. Wait…” She brought her hands to her temples, fighting against the pain, then she lowered them and exhaled. “Oh. I see. I’m so sorry.”

Ignoring the ghost’s pointed look, Crowley kept rubbing his chest absentmindedly. “Uhm… thanks?”

“That’s really haunting you, is it?”

“What is she talking about?” the ghost asked.

Crowley ignored him. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh, should I respect your feelings, now? The way you’ve respected mine when you’ve called an amateur exorcist to get rid of me?”

Crowley felt the blood leave his face. He was waiting for the ache in his chest to be replaced by the old, comfortable hollowness, but instead there was something else. A dull anger. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Did your incompetence cause some major inconvenience to someone? How did you manage to do it, since you don’t do anything all day except moping around and digging a groove in my floor?”

“Shut up!” The anger that had been building up exploded out of Crowley without warning, and he stopped himself just short of smashing something on the floor. Lucky, because the nearest object was the angel mug and he would never have forgiven himself if he broke that.

He needed some air. He needed to go out. Far from people who knew, or thought they knew, or didn’t need to know.

Just before he slammed the door behind him, he could hear the young woman say: “Hey, spirit? A word to the wise: show some respect for the dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update schedule:
> 
> April 15: chapter 1  
> April 22: chapter 2  
> April 29: chapter 3  
> May 6: chapter 4  
> May 13: chapter 5
> 
> Come bother me on [Tumblr](https://mllekurtz.tumblr.com/) anytime!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: death and death-related trauma, but they're not detailed.

_ I am not dead. _

As he inhaled, Aziraphale repeated those words to himself until they stopped having any meaning. The way the air filled his lungs seemed real enough, but then there were the other things — his inability to hold anything in his hand, for example, or the way he kept merging with the furniture.

That, he had to admit, was worrying.

The most worrisome fact of all, though, was that he couldn’t recall anything about what happened to him before that… man occupied his home. He  _ knew _ there was something, but figuring out what was like trying to grasp smoke with his bare fingers. It was worse than recalling a dream, because he was certain that he had forgotten real things, important things. And every minute, every day that passed pushed him away from his past.

In short, he had nothing and no one to hold on to besides the squatter.

Which meant that the only hope of getting his life back had currently stormed out of the flat.

“Oh, bugger,” Aziraphale said, going after him.

He found him sitting on a bench in the Soho Square Gardens. It was quite a chilly evening and few people were around. Crowley, currently splayed on a park bench, was in his shirtsleeves. His unfailing sunglasses were pushed high up his nose, even past sunset. For heaven's sake, he wore them even inside the house, sometimes.

Aziraphale suspected it was because Crowley’s eyes were always red and bloodshot from his lack of sleep. It was a shame, he thought idly, because he had the most peculiar irises he’d ever seen, a deep greenish amber. He remembered noticing them during a staring contest in the kitchen. Crowley initiated it, probably to try and intimidate him, but he obviously lost. One advantage of being incorporeal is that you technically don’t have to blink.

There was no reaction as he approached. Were his eyes closed behind the sunglasses? Aziraphale cleared his voice, making Crowley jump.

“What do you want?” the man said, leaning with his elbows on his knees.

In consideration of his troubled state of mind, Aziraphale elected to overlook the rudeness in Crowley’s tone. “It occurs to me,” he started, “that I probably don’t know you all that well.” He cast his eyes around, looking for inspiration. “This place seems nice. I wonder if I ever came here, when I was… Uhm, before.”

Crowley didn’t react. It was like Aziraphale wasn’t even  _ there _ .

“I am really sorry,” he went on. “For your loss, I mean. Whoever it was, I’m sure you loved them very much. Most people find it helpful to talk about…”

“I don’t want to  _ talk _ about it.” There was venom in the words Crowley spat out.

Aziraphale sighed. “Anger also works.”

“What are you, now, a therapist? They all throw in the towel with me, after a while. Thinking of it, maybe we should give it a try. Hey, did you know I’m a doctor?”

Bewildered by Crowley's sudden eagerness to talk, Aziraphale focused on the last part. “I didn’t.”

“Yeah, or maybe I was, I haven’t looked up how these things work. How long can you not show up at work until they want your membership card back?” He paused, though clearly not waiting for an answer.

Aziraphale said nothing.

Crowley took a deep breath. He wasn’t looking at him. He wasn’t looking anywhere. “Her name was Eve. She was my patient. Brain surgery, a delicate procedure, something only a handful of people in the NHS can perform with success.” He leaned back on the bench, his fists so tight that his knuckles were white. “I thought I could be one of them. I wasn’t. Learned that the hard way. So I stopped working, left my old, fancy flat in Mayfair. And here I am.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale breathed. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Crowley got up and walked past him. “Not for me.”

The passage of time was weird, when you were a ghost. Aziraphale remembered only the vaguest details about leaving the park and returning home. He found himself in his kitchen, staring at the open book on the table. 

Crowley had turned the page for him again.

He heard the key in the lock and turned to see Crowley’s shadow in the hall. The man took his time, taking off his shoes and cranking up the flat’s heating. Then he entered the kitchen, sniffling, and stopped when he saw Aziraphale there. He didn’t look surprised. He was expecting to find him.

“Still here?” he asked nonetheless, but he sounded more tired than confrontational.

After what he had learned, Aziraphale didn’t have it in him to be mad. He made a helpless gesture. “Apparently. And, if this is of any consolation to you, I have no idea why.”

With a tired moan, Crowley took off his glasses and got himself a glass of water.

“I don’t know why you’re the only one who can see me,” Aziraphale went on, forgetting for the first time to be upset by the confidence with which _that person_ moved in _his_ _kitchen_. “All I know is that, when I’m not with you, it’s like I don’t… exist.”

Heavily leaning on the kitchen counter, head bent and eyes closed, Crowley let a few seconds pass. Crowley, a man who made an oath to never hurt anybody. “I’m sorry,” he whispered after a while.

Aziraphale fidgeted. “It’s not your fault. I don’t think,” he added.

That got him a half-smile, which was much more than he was hoping for. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “Sorry for saying you’re dead. Maybe Book Girl is right. There’s another explanation.”

“Yes, an explanation would indeed be nice.” Aziraphale sighed and started pacing the room. “If only I could remember something about what happened to me.”

“Well, what  _ do  _ you remember?”

Aziraphale stopped and stared with intensity at nothing in particular. “I know my name is Aziraphale. The cup is right.”

He heard Crowley do a strange huff. Was that a…  _ laugh _ ? “Right. And you lived here, and you ran the bookshop downstairs.”

Aziraphale gasped. “The bookshop! Maybe, if I went there, something might jog my memory.” The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Yes, that might work!

Then Crowley raised his hands. “Tomorrow. I’m not breaking and entering into an establishment in the middle of the night.”

From the middle of his mental journey, Aziraphale abruptly returned to reality. “You’re coming too?”

“Listen, you clearly need my help and I need you to… move on, or whatever,” Crowley said hastily. “It’s best for both of us if I come along, speed up the process. And… wait here a second.” He left the kitchen. Aziraphale heard something metallic scrape and clink as Crowley returned with a bunch of keys. “Do you remember if any of these opens the bookshop door?”

Aziraphale studied the metal keys Crowley was fanning in front of him. “That one.”

Nodding, Crowley put the keyring on the kitchen table, with the bookshop key apart from the others. Then he hovered, hesitating, scratching his neck. “I… Tomorrow… We’ll find something, I’m sure.” His eyes fell on the Agnes Nutter book. “Are you done with that page?”

“Not yet,” Aziraphale answered, in a small voice. He hadn’t realised how much it could mean to have someone else’s support. Even if that  _ someone  _ wasn’t ideal.

“Okay.” Crowley didn’t look at him, even if they were mere inches apart. “I need to take a shower,” he said.

Aziraphale cleared his incorporeal throat. “Right. Off you go. My boiler isn’t going to empty itself.”

This finally earned him a glance, even if it was a reproachful one. “It’s  _ my _ boiler now.”

The thought occurred to him as he was pacing the kitchen, running his fingertips through the surfaces he could no longer touch, wishing something would jog his memory like the bookshop key did. When did he last see Crowley eat something? The only shopping bag that entered the flat in the past few days contained a bottle of bourbon and a box of crackers. But he didn’t keep an eye on the man, except to point out the things that annoyed him, so he couldn’t be certain.

Without thinking too much about it — something that happened quite rarely — he stepped through the wall that separated the kitchen and the bathroom, where he could hear the water falling inside the shower. “Did you eat?”

The sound of a frantic scrambling and of something being dropped behind the shower curtain almost drowned Crowley’s curses. “Holy Chr— What are you  _ doing  _ in here?”

Folding his arms, Aziraphale ignored him. “When you were out. Did you get something to eat?”

With a disbelieving snort, Crowley turned the water off. “Since when do you care?”

“I have a vested interest in your survival, considering you’re the only one who can see me.” Aziraphale looked around, taking in the little changes in the room since he lived there: a new toothbrush, no cologne bottles in sight. “I like the plants.” The leaves cascading from the pots crammed on the tiny windowsill did indeed liven things up.

“Go away, I’m coming out.”

Aziraphale turned his back to the shower as soon as the curtain was drawn. “I’ll see you in the kitchen, then.” He thought he heard Crowley mutter something that sounded quite like  _ unbelievable _ as he approached the wall, going out of the bathroom the same way he had entered it.

He waited for Crowley in the kitchen, where the man entered a few minutes later with a morose look, wearing the t-shirt and the sweatpants he usually slept in. “That really couldn’t wait?”

“I apologise for invading your privacy.”

His quiet tone seemed to catch Crowley unprepared. “All right,” he said tentatively, edging closer to the fridge.

“I couldn’t help but notice that you don’t eat regularly. Moreover, your sleeping patterns are uneven and you don’t seem to follow any sort of routine.”

“Routines are for people who have a job,” Crowley said, opening the fridge. “Or a life. Or both.”

Aziraphale watched him as he picked up a carton of milk and shook it. “Don’t drink that, it’s been there since I was living here.”  _ Oh. I remember that. _ He put away that information for future examination. “Do you see what I mean?”

With a sigh, Crowley closed the fridge door and leaned against it. “So what? Now you’re turning from ghost to life coach? Telling me to take my vitamins and exercise?”

“No. But it does appear that, through no fault of either of us, we’re stuck with each other, for the time being.” He looked into Crowley’s amber eyes, trying to reach beyond the barrier of spite and sarcasm that the man put into place without even noticing. “I’m here to listen, if you want to talk about it.”

“I don’t,” Crowley replied, but without vehemence. They both knew it was a perfunctory answer.

“Well, I’m here anyway.” Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. “And now you’ll make yourself some tea, or I will possess you and make you do it myself.”

Crowley seemed to lose his footing at those words, something quite odd, since he wasn’t moving. Then the moment passed and he cackled, pushing himself off the fridge door, reaching for the kettle. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“It won’t turn.”

“Don’t push the key all the way through.”

“I’ve heard you the first three times. I’m telling you it won’t turn, no matter how far I push it.”

The morning light that filtered through the staircase windows was barely enough to let them see the bookshop door’s lock, that Crowley was ineffectively trying to open while Aziraphale looked over in frustration.

“I don’t know why I’m bothering,” Crowley muttered, “when you could just walk through this door and be done with it.”

“Yes, but you cannot, and we agreed to do this together. Oh, wait. I just remembered. You have to pull the handle towards you, and  _ then  _ turn the key.”

A clanking sound and a rattle were followed by the unmistakable clatter of an ancient lock opening. Crowley turned the handle and the door opened with a squeak. “It worked.” 

His tone was more surprised than it was polite, but Aziraphale couldn’t find it in him to be cross. “Of course it did. Now, come on.” Who knew how many revelations were waiting for him inside the bookshop. Aziraphale clasped his hands, suddenly nervous. “Uhm, after you.”

Shaking his head, Crowley pushed the door open.

It was dark, though not completely: the faintest light filtered through the heavy wooden boards that panelled the front windows, and it was too early and overcast for the skylight to offer any further lighting. 

There was the unmistakable sound of someone stepping into some furniture, and Crowley cursed under his breath. “Where are the lights? I’m going to turn ’em on before I break something.”

“Oh, do be careful of the books.”

“I wasn’t talking about the… Just tell me where the switch is.”

Aziraphale scrunched up his nose. “Mmm… There should be one on the left. At shoulder-height, more or less.”

Carefully, this time, Crowley moved closer to the wall. “Found it.” He turned it, but nothing happened. “Power’s off. Where’s the fuse box?”

This time, the nose-scrunching and brain-racking led to nothing. There was an empty space in his memory where the information should have been. Aziraphale sighed. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember where your fuse box is?”

Aziraphale let out a frustrated noise. Did ghosts panic? Wasn’t that some kind of chemical response to stress that ectoplasms shouldn’t have been able to feel? “It’s not fun, Crowley. I know I should know, but I don’t.”

“Okay, okay.” It was hard to tell without seeing his face, but Crowley sounded conciliatory. “Maybe it’ll come to you. Wait, can you see in the dark?”

“Of course I can’t see in the dark, what kind of question is that?”

The noise that followed suggested the forced suppression of a snarky reply. “Okay. We could bring a flashlight, or look around for the fuse box. Or switch to plan B.”

Aziraphale cast a last, ineffective look around and sighed. The idea of stumbling around with a flashlight didn’t look particularly appealing. “Plan B?”

“Ask the neighbours. Someone’s bound to know something about you.”

A faint glimmer of hope sparked inside Aziraphale once again: yes, that sounded like a good idea. He ran a shop, of course he must have known the people who lived and worked around him. He smiled to himself. Yes, they were close to solving the mystery of who he was.

“I have no idea who he was,” the record-store clerk next door said.

Shoulders hunched, hands stuffed in his pockets and sunglasses on, Crowley somehow managed to look inoffensive and suspicious all at once. If he weren’t starting to be so exasperated by the current situation, Aziraphale would have suggested doing something about it. Maybe stop wearing black all the time. Though, when he tried to picture him in any other colour, his imagination failed him.

“Have you ever spoken to him?” Crowley was asking in the meantime.

The woman shrugged. “No, never. He minded his own business, you know?”

“I would have had no reason to come here, anyway,” Aziraphale said, looking around at the boxes and shelves of records and used vinyl.

“It’s not so bad,” replied Crowley, earning a raised eyebrow and an unimpressed look from the clerk.

“Thank you,” she said icily.

“What I meant is that this selection is appalling. And it’s not even properly alphabetised,” Aziraphale clarified, following Crowley outside, as he apparently had deemed a tactical retreat to be the best course of action.

They had no better luck with the upstairs neighbours, the ones that kept their television volume so high that Crowley could have recited the BBC Two schedule from memory, or so he claimed.

“Nobody lived in that apartment,” said the short, balding man who opened the door, laughing in Crowley’s face when he tried to explain that someone, in fact, did.

The weirdness started to settle in Aziraphale's stomach the moment they entered the coffee-shop. The establishment couldn’t have been more different from the bookshop next door: modern, sleek, minimalistic. Every surface white or chromed, giving it a hospital feeling that Aziraphale struggled to reconcile with warm beverages and baked goods. The overall effect was so blinding that he envied Crowley his sunglasses.

The feeling intensified when a tall, lively man — the owner, presumably — came out of a back room and almost jogged towards the counter. The coffee-shop was virtually empty, the only clientele being a sharp-dressed manager-like type who ignored her expensive coffee to tap away at a thin laptop, and the two of them. Or, well, just Crowley, as far as the rest of the world was concerned.

(It seemed being ignored by the rest of the world had suited him just fine, when he was… Before. He wasn’t so sure he liked the feeling now.)

The feeling of dread and nausea intensified when the owner addressed Crowley with a broad, dazzling, astonishingly white and completely fake smile. “Welcome to Celestial Beans. What can I offer you today?”

With a grimace, Aziraphale turned to Crowley, who looked out of place everywhere, to be fair, but nowhere as much as here. “Don’t trust him,” he said.

Crowley’s eyes darted to him behind the glasses as he cleared his voice. “Hi, yes, I was actually here to talk to you about the shop next door?”

The man’s violet eyes widened. “Oh, you must be from the agency! I was expecting you. Now I get why they told me to not judge the book by its cover!” he added with a laugh, patting Crowley’s arm with so much vehemence that even someone less rail-thin would have staggered. “When can I move in?”

The nausea that twisted inside Aziraphale’s insides may not have been physical, but it certainly felt real enough to him. He wondered if he could be sick. A few more minutes and he would find out.

“I’m not… Wait, what do you mean, ‘move in’?” Crowley asked.

“The expansion? I thought I was adamant with your colleague on the phone.” Under the veneer of affability, there was an edge to the man’s voice. “I want to be able to take over as soon as that dusty shoe box gets cleaned out.” His cold eyes narrowed. “Is this not why you’re here? To talk about the change of ownership?”

The world started to crumble under Aziraphale’s feet as he exhaled. “Oh, no.” 

Crowley angled towards him, but in the end he decided that answering the owner’s question was more pressing. “Let’s… let’s talk about it some more. You, uhm, you knew the previous owner well? Do you know where he is now?”

The man’s demeanour shifted imperceptibly but clearly at those words. “You’re not from the real estate agency. Who are you?”

Crowley gulped visibly. “I’m the new tenant of the flat upstairs. The previous occupant of the house, ah… left something there, and I wanted to return it to him.”

The man scoffed. “I assure you, whatever it is, he won’t miss it.”


	3. Chapter 3

If his life with the ghost so far had been like having an AM radio in his head that wouldn’t turn off, the silence that followed their trip to the coffee-shop was even more unnerving.

“Hey, at least now we know,” he said, just to say something, really. Not to… comfort him or anything. He stopped and turned when he noticed he wasn’t being followed anymore, and saw the ghost standing a few steps behind. “Come on, it could have been worse.”

The ghost was fussing with his cufflinks, looking troubled and downcast. Everything about him seemed so solid, so real — the texture of his clothes, his cotton-candy hair, even the moisture in his eyes — that Crowley had to remind himself his fingers would have gone right through him if he touched him. Not that he wanted to touch him. But, you know, a friendly pat on the back would have at least saved him some words.

“I’m in a coma,” he said, repeating what the coffee-shop owner had offhandedly told them a few minutes ago.

“At least you’re not— You know. Could be worse,” Crowley pointed out, helpfully.

“I’m in a coma,” the ghost repeated, looking at him, “and that man wants to take over my bookshop and turn it into a… an aseptic shrine to watered-down coffee.” He looked like he was about to faint. 

Crowley stepped back towards him. “Hey, hey, listen to me. Deep breaths. Okay? Stay with me, now. Breathe in. Breathe out.” The notion of guiding a ghost through a breathing exercise wasn’t sound under any circumstance, but it seemed to help. And Londoners were used to worse than people talking to themselves on the pavement, so nobody gave him a second look. 

  


“Better?”

The ghost looked at him and made a tentative smile. “A bit. And you’re right, of course, I should focus on the good news. I told you I wasn’t dead.”

That sounded more like him. Crowley caught himself smiling in return and squashed the thing as if it were a particularly nasty spider. He was so relieved he didn't even register the last word in the ghost's sentence. “Yeah, good on you.”

“I wonder what happened to me. We need to find out where I am, Crowley, before worse comes to worst.” He risked a look at the coffee-shop and shivered.

Crowley couldn’t really blame him. It was the least friendly, most disturbing coffee-shop in the country. It was the Stepford wife of cafés. 

“Let me see the number that man gave you.”

“Oh.” Crowley fished a creased piece of paper out of the back pocket of his jeans. It had been pristine when he shoved it in there, in a hurry to get away from the owner’s unsettling presence. On it there was a name, followed by a telephone number. The man’s penmanship was the closest he’d ever seen to a freehand Helvetica.

The ghost looked over his shoulder and gasped. “Tracy. I remember her name. But I can’t… Oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue. It’s so  _ unnerving _ .”

“Tracy.” Crowley turned towards him, fumbling with the piece of paper, suddenly unsure of what to do with his hands. And also of what to think. He had made a few assumptions, and he suddenly needed to know if they had to be revised. “Wife, you think?”

The ghost snorted in response. Then the realisation that Crowley wasn’t kidding dawned on his face. “I don’t think so,” he said, slowly.

Crowley folded the piece of paper carefully, smoothing out the creases. “But you’re not sure.”

The look on the ghost’s face suggested some kind of internal recalibration, though Crowley wasn’t sure about its nature. “I am,” he said, again very slowly. “I was being rhetorical. Now please, let’s go back home, regroup, and call Tracy.”

As they were retracing their steps towards the back entrance, they walked past the front of the bookshop. Looking at it more closely, the boards that covered the windows were clearly visible. Crowley couldn’t resist: he put his glasses on his head and leaned against a window pane with his hands around his eyes, trying to peer inside.

“What are you doing?” the ghost inquired.

“Dunno. Just trying it out from another perspective,” he muttered. He couldn’t see anything. Maybe, if he just leaned a bit to the right… 

“That’s no use, mate,” said a male voice behind him. Crowley straightened and looked at the nondescript gentleman in a suit who was talking to him. “That place has been closed for months.”

Crowley shrugged, but a dreadful pressure was squeezing his stomach. “Ta.”

As the man went away, he turned to the ghost, who was considerably paler. “Months?” He looked at Crowley. “You were… you  _ are _ a doctor. Is ‘months’ a long time to be in a coma?”

Fumbling only a little, Crowley put his sunglasses back on. “That depends.” It wasn’t a lie, but… He just didn’t want to talk about it. In part because it skirted dangerously near a territory he wanted to avoid at all costs, and in part because… Oh, hell, why should he care about a bookseller’s ghost’s feelings?

  


Two wide eyes the colour of aquamarine were looking at him expectantly, as if their owner was expecting him to fix all his problems. An alarm siren started blaring in Crowley’s brain, and his fight or flight response kicked in. “Look at the time. Shouldn’t we go eat something?”

Wow. How did he manage to fill such a short sentence with so many wrong things?  _ We? Eat? _

At least the ghost was diverted from his previous train of thoughts. He squinted at Crowley, considering. “I could come with you, if you like.” His face lit up so suddenly that Crowley was almost blinded. “I can even recommend a place nearby. Oh, look, I remembered something! Do you like Greek cuisine?”

While he went on listing the restaurant’s highlights, Crowley racked his brain for a way to tell him that he wasn’t really hungry. (He hadn’t been in months. That was another story.) But it was his suggestion in the first place. And it  _ was  _ lunchtime. The truth was that he needed to put something in his stomach, even if all he wanted to do was crawl back home and under a blanket.

“Fine,” he said, interrupting the ghost in the middle of a tirade about the proper way to make tzatziki sauce. “Show me this place, and then let’s go back home.”

* * *

His table on the first floor had a really nice view of the street below. Maybe the waiter thought that, since he was unaccompanied, he could at least have something to look at. Crowley’s irritation had boiled down, turning into resignation during the short walk to the restaurant. As he settled down in the almost empty room, his stomach did a funny, twisting twirl as he inhaled the smell coming from the kitchen.

He frowned. It wasn’t worry. It wasn’t anxiety, either. Strange.

“You need to try their moussaka,” the ghost was saying, looking at the menu Crowley had absentmindedly opened as he was trying to understand what was happening. “But first, as an hors-d’oeuvre, I would recommend the little feta pies with honey. You’re amenable to cheese, right?”

“What’s the point,” Crowley finally managed to say, “if you can’t taste anything?”

The ghost shut up. 

Crowley found himself enjoying the silence less than he’d expected. He looked up, and the only reflection he could see in the window was his own. He closed the menu. “You know what? This is pointless. Let’s go home and call your Tracy.”

“No.” To Crowley’s surprise, the ghost’s tone was passionate, even angry. “We’re not going home so you can eat some crackers in front of your thrice-darned computer screen and call it a lunch. We’re here, so you’re going to eat properly for once. And, while I may not be able to taste anything, I can be content in the knowledge that someone, in this vast, uncaring world, is having a good meal.”

In the stunned silence that followed, the waiter approached Crowley’s table, almost making him jump out of his own skin. “Are you ready to order, sir?”

Crowley gave a short, dismayed glance at the waiter, then inhaled deeply and turned his eyes towards the ghost, who was still standing beside the table, brow furrowed and arms crossed. “Yes,” he croaked out, then cleared his throat. “Yes, I’m ready.”

The waiter was still standing there, his pen ready to scribble down Crowley’s order, and Crowley was still looking at the ghost. He had to raise an eyebrow to make the former bookseller and Greek cuisine connoisseur get the hint.

“Oh. Oh! All right. Start with… with the phyllo-wrapped feta.”

“The cheese pastry thingies,” Crowley told the waiter. “And… the eggplant pie. Yes, I know, shut up. No, sorry, I wasn’t talking to you. Nevermind. Thank you.” As soon as the waiter — whose professional attitude had been tested in far worse ways — scuttled away, Crowley looked down, staring at the table. He didn’t think he could say it while making eye contact, even with the sunglasses on. “Listen, gho— Aziraphale.” He waited for another second, but nobody was going to say it for him. So.  _ Here goes.  _ “I think you should possess me.”

When a few moments passed and no answer appeared to be coming, Crowley raised his eyes. The ghost’s mouth was moving, perhaps trying to settle on the most appropriate reaction, before a soft “What?” escaped his lips.

“I think you should.” Ah, it was too late, Crowley was looking at him now and he would most definitely stumble through the speech he had hastily prepared while ordering his food. “Possess me. I think you should. Do that. Uhm. I’ve read a bit about ghosts. As you know.”

The ghost scoffed. “Oh, I know. That balderdash you keep on the kitchen table.”

“Which you’ve read as well. And you know it can be done. You’re the one who suggested it in the first place.”

“I was joking!” The ghost —  _ Aziraphale _ , Crowley corrected himself: if he was going through with this, getting used to his name was the least he could do — was shaking his head. “That book isn't an instruction manual. Have you lost your mind?”

Now, Crowley knew he had a few options here, each of them painfully revealing to some degree. How could he tell him that he kept playing in his mind what an incorporeal body passing through his felt like? That he hadn’t stopped thinking about Aziraphale’s joke about possessing him since the moment he heard those words? He chose the less truthful answer. “Honestly? I don’t care about food. I never did. But you do, and you miss it. And, since you’ve dragged me here, we could make the best of it.”

“Crowley, are you serious?” The ghost leaned towards him and lowered his voice, as if he feared he might be overheard. “Possession is… It may be dangerous for you. And you can’t just go around and ask ghosts to possess you.”

Crowley rolled his eyes, leaning on the chair so that his arm dangled from the backrest. “It’s not like I’m asking the first ghost I’ve run into. We’ve known each other for how long, now?”

“But I wouldn’t even know where to start!”

Crowley suppressed a grin. They were discussing logistics, now. “How hard can it be?”

Aziraphale scrambled for another objection that Crowley would hit out of the field. “What if it’s painful?”

Crowley shrugged. “I’ll tell you and you’ll leave.”

“And what if I won’t leave? Have you thought about that?”

“Oh, please, you goody-two-shoes. I wish you would. I could use a break from my life.”

“I’m serious.”

_ Me too _ , Crowley thought. He shrugged again.

He could see the last shreds of Aziraphale’s hesitation leaving him. Crowley wouldn’t have made the suggestion if he didn’t think, deep down, that the ghost wanted it, too. And apparently he was right.

“Fine, we'll try it,” Aziraphale said eventually. “But you’ll tell me if…”

“Yes, yes, let’s get it over with,” he interrupted, hoping to come across as impatient and not eager.

He thought he was ready. He really did. But, if just touching a ghost had been like putting an unadvisable quantity of wasabi in his mouth… Crowley had never been struck by lightning, but now he thought he knew how that must feel: pervasive, jarring, something he wouldn’t do ever again.

And then the feeling passed. And there was… peace.

A sigh left his lips, though he only noticed it after the fact. He realised he wasn’t the one who had sighed. 

“That’s odd,” he whispered. No,  _ Crowley  _ didn’t say anything. “Is this… How are you feeling? Are you there?”

He was there. He could still see. But, when he tried to move his hand, it felt so heavy he gave up. A half-formed thought bubbled to the surface of Crowley’s consciousness.  _ This… This is the weirdest shit that’s ever happened to me _ .

“I wouldn’t have used those words,” his voice whispered back, pronouncing each word with a carefulness he'd never had, “but I share the feeling.”

Crowley… wasn’t startled, not really. Not physically.  _ You heard me? _

The fingertips of his right hand brushed the tablecloth, then he touched the silverware, slowly, almost reverently. “I did. Are you all right? Do you feel anything?”

_ Sort of.  _ How could he describe the sensation of being a passenger in his own body? The first adjective that came to mind was “relaxing”, but that would have required a lot more explanations than he was up to offer.  _ It’s… weird. But maybe it’s just because I’m left-handed. _

One of Aziraphale’s short, faltering laughs — Crowley hadn’t realised how well the pattern of them was traced in his mind — came out of his own lips. Then he squared his shoulders. “Are you always this stiff?”

_ Uhm. Probably.  _ Crowley didn’t want Aziraphale to focus too much on his body, dangerous territory. Even if maybe it was too late to play coy about it.

“Sir?” While they were both distracted, the waiter had returned with their food and was looking at them with polite concern.

Aziraphale turned and smiled sweetly — it was a first for Crowley’s lips, which would remember that disconcerting feeling for years to come. He thanked the waiter, who left a dish full of little golden pastries in front of him and disappeared again. Aziraphale waited until they were alone before lifting his — Crowley’s — fingers.

The tension in his own body was a familiar and yet alien feeling.  _ Whenever you’re ready _ , Crowley proffered.

Exhaling a deep breath, Aziraphale was about to grab a fork, then changed his mind and took one pastry between thumb and forefinger, with the care usually reserved for Fabergé eggs, brought it to their mouth and took a bite.

  


It is superfluous to point out that Crowley had, obviously, eaten before. His taste and enthusiasm about the subject may have been a little lower than average, true, but he had kept himself alive for all those years, didn't he?

But the statement sounded faulty, all of a sudden. It was his mouth, his lips, his taste buds being involved, same as they ever were, and yet it felt like a first time. The way his teeth broke the crunchy surface of the pastry made something uncoil somewhere between his throat and his chest. The whiff of honey that reached his nose made him think about the sun shining over a place he’d never seen. The strong flavour of the cheese, plus the texture, the mixture of sweet and salty, of cream and slick honey and sesame seeds made an uncontrollable moan escape from his lips.

Had he… had he been the one moaning? Or was it Aziraphale?

His cheeks were suddenly very hot and he started sweating, he wasn’t sure why. Then the thing that was happening in his mouth seemed to have… ramifications. Widespread.

His fingers let go of what remained of the pastry, which fell on the plate with a crusty clatter.

_ This is fucking weird _ .

“I agree.” Aziraphale’s answer had followed swiftly, delivered in a shaking voice.

_ Abort? _

“It seems wise.” And, just like that, there was another electric shock and a dizziness, much like jumping out of a moving car. No, being  _ pushed _ from a moving car would be more accurate.

Just like that, Crowley was himself again.  _ Ugh _ . He patted his chest, closed his eyes, took a deep breath. Two things jumped to his mind: first, he was shaking. A leftover from the possession, surely. Second: much to his surprise, it wasn’t unpleasant. Nothing about the experience had been, really.

Okay, three things. Third: he wasn’t ready to unpack any of it.

“Whew, okay. That was  _ wild _ . Let’s go home?”

It was only when nobody answered him that he looked around and realised he was alone.

* * *

Crowley walked back home. He put the keys on the entry table, like a normal person. He stuffed the leftovers from the restaurant — more a takeaway, really, since he couldn’t eat anything after that morsel — in the fridge, which had never been so full of edible things since he moved in. 

All the time, he thought about one thing.

The phone rang in his back pocket, startling him in a way that would have been embarrassing, if anyone were there to witness it. In his haste to answer, he didn’t look at the caller’s ID. “Hello! Yes!”

“Crowley, you lucky bastard,” said a deadpan and arguably feminine voice that he couldn’t immediately place. 

His answer turned out something like: “Nnh?”

“I’ve got great news for you,” the voice went on in a monotone. “The flat’s yours. You got yourself a nice, long lease. Congratulations.”

Oh! It was the real estate agent from Hell. The meaning of her words took a little longer to sink in. “H-how long a lease?”

“Very long. I’ll send you an email with the details and talk to you tomorrow.”

Crowley sensed she was about to cut the call short and physically extended a hand to stop her. “Wait, wh— What? Why? Why now? What changed?” There he was, a stuttering mess putting on a pantomime in the middle of his kitchen. Good for him, really, that Aziraphale wasn’t around to see this mess.

“A true sob story. The client was kind of in a coma, apparently, and they’ve decided to pull the plug. Good for you, eh?” 

This time, no amount of smashed-together syllables and frantic gesturing on Crowley’s part prevented the agent from hanging up.

With the phone still in his hand, he plunked down on a chair. Had breathing always been this difficult or was he noticing it just now?

That was bad. No, that was  _ horrible _ . He took off his glasses and rubbed his knuckles on his forehead, trying to think.  _ Think _ . He took a few deep, deliberate breaths, which were pointless but made him believe he was doing something about the panic that was starting to settle. A sudden blackness gripped his bones. It was familiar, but he hadn’t felt it in a while. Around the time he moved, he realised.  _ Oh, hello _ , he thought.  _ Back again, are you? When things get dire. _

It needn’t be so complicated, he knew that. He could give in to the blackness, crawl into bed, stay there, get up once in a while to humour the needs of his pointless, dumb body. Just like he did last time.

_ It went so well, after all. _

He gritted his teeth, sinking his fingernails into the soft skin of his palms. Hurting himself out of it wasn’t the best solution, he knew, but the wholesome coping mechanisms would have to wait for a less life-and-death scenario. 

He hated that part of him, the part that thought giving up was acceptable. He hated that he found himself in this situation again. And he hated that he couldn’t do anything about it.

Because there was nothing to be done. He wasn’t Aziraphale’s relative or friend or… nothing. He was Aziraphale’s  _ nothing _ . He was just some rando that lived in his old apartment and probably hallucinated the whole ghost thing out of malnourishment and lack of sleep.

It wasn’t his business.

But it wasn’t  _ fair _ .

The kitchen was so silent with only him in it. The Agnes Nutter book was still open on the table, the angel mug on the counter, ready to be picked up by its owner at any moment. It was angled so that Crowley could only read the last bit of the word scribbled on it.  _ APHALE.  _

What an absurd name his ghost had.

Crowley carefully cleared his throat. “Aziraphale?”

He couldn’t really say he’d expected an answer. Not on the first try, at least.

He closed his eyes. “Aziraphale.” He looked around, firmly forbidding himself to hope to spot a glimpse of tartan or tan and doing it anyway, because he had always been rubbish at doing what was best for him, and why start now anyway? 

But he was still alone.

“Angel?” How was that for a pet name?  _ What’s next, you pathetic son of a bitch? ‘Honey’, ‘sunshine’?  _ “Please?” He grimaced at his tone.

He shook his head, as if that would clear it, and turned on his phone’s screen. With the other hand he fished out of his pocket the creased piece of paper with the cursed coffee shop letterhead. 

Questioning not only what he was doing now, but each and every decision he ever made, he composed the number written on it and brought the phone to his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is _still_ going to be fine.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No art for this chapter, sadly, because artists are very busy people.

“Let’s get it over with,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale — even if his lack of tangibility made it somewhat difficult, if not impossible — let out a flustered sigh.

How could a conversation take a turn for the worse so unexpectedly?

Here he was, in his favourite Greek restaurant, in front of an impossible man who was asking him — of all things! — to possess him. It was a temptation he didn’t need. He missed experiencing the world with every one of his senses. He’d never realised how important touch and taste were to him until the sudden lack of them left him feeling so… incomplete.

He pretended not to notice Crowley’s smile when he understood that his temptation was accomplished.

If Aziraphale was perfectly honest, he hadn’t been that hard to convince, because… oh, for Heaven’s sake, because he wanted it, too. Crowley had made the suggestion just as Aziraphale was realising how much he missed all the scrumptious delicacies he was listing. He would never want to  _ impose _ , obviously. But Crowley  _ offered _ . More than once. And he had deflected all of Aziraphale’s objections in a very reasonable way.

After a certain point, it would have been rude to refuse.

Aziraphale realised his mistake the moment he took his first breath in Crowley’s body. Not because it was strange. And it  _ was _ , everything felt different, from the ache in his back — how could he  _ stand  _ it? — to the way the seat of the chair felt under his buttocks. Crowley seriously needed to put some meat on his bones. And his vision was so blurry. Why didn’t he wear glasses? Real ones, not the ones he hid behind.

No, it had been a mistake because being in Crowley’s body was  _ wonderful _ . 

Under all the aches, besides the lanky limbs and the too-tight trousers, there was something that wasn’t physical. It was hard to describe without being synesthetic about it. It was warm, refracting, discordant, loud. The essence of it kept resisting his attempts to define it, like water slipping out of his fingers. One thing about it was clear, though: it revealed something about Crowley’s nature, this core of him, the untameable nature of it. Aziraphale suddenly understood why he always appeared so angry and tired, often at the same time.

Deep down, under the snippy replies and the sarcastic remarks, Crowley’s nature was a  _ caring _ one.

This realisation, much like a car accident, happened in an instant and left Aziraphale feeling overwhelmed and in pain. 

He wanted to sigh, so he did. Usually there would have been nothing strange about this whole process, but he made Crowley’s body sigh, and that was… something. “That’s odd,” he said, and blinked, startled. This couldn’t be what Crowley wanted, at all. “Is this…” Agreeable? Comfortable? He wasn’t fixing him a bath, for Heaven’s sake. “How are you feeling? Are you there?” he whispered, self-consciously, knowing that for all the world he was talking by himself. 

How could Crowley go around chatting with him all the time? It was a fearless thing to do. Aziraphale would appreciate it more.

There was a new, strange sensation, like a pricking in the back of his brain, or an odd cramp in a muscle he didn’t know he had. Then he… felt? (He didn’t “hear” it, for sure.) Then he  _ felt  _ an answer:  _ This is the weirdest shit that’s ever happened to me _ .

It was Crowley’s voice, and his vocabulary, too. 

“I wouldn’t have used those words, but I share the feeling,” Aziraphale said, trying to keep out of his tone a fondness which had no business being there in the first place. 

Talking in another man’s body was unfamiliar, but it seemed to come quite naturally. Would other things be that easy? Aziraphale lifted his — Crowley’s — right hand and reaccustomed himself with having fingertips which were able to touch and feel. As he shivered, the tingling sensation in his brain came back.  _ You heard me? _

“I did. Are you all right? Do you feel anything?”

_ Sort of _ .  _ It’s… weird. But maybe it’s just because I’m left-handed. _

Before he could stop himself, Aziraphale laughed. He cut it short, because Crowley would never have laughed like this and it seemed… impolite. And also because it was embarrassing to laugh by himself. He tried to straighten his spine, but Crowley’s back was having none of it. “Are you always this stiff?” he asked, and then he bit his tongue. What an observation to make!

Luckily, Crowley didn’t seem to mind.  _ Uhm. Probably _ , he answered breezily, as if Aziraphale had just commented on the weather, not on something intimate and private.

Then the waiter came with his meal, and everything else fell into the background. Aziraphale hoped Crowley couldn’t feel how much the sight and the smell of those pastries made him want to cry. They would have been tears of joy, tinged with regret and gratitude. Definitely not something he wanted someone else to be a witness of. Especially not Crowley. He would never hear the end of it.

_ Whenever you’re ready _ , the nuisance in question teased him.

Aziraphale sighed and was about to take the fork, automatically, then he stopped. He could be a bit of a rebel about it. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, after all. And Crowley wouldn’t mind. He could even like the idea.

He brought a pastry to his lips with his fingers. Except that wasn’t precisely what was happening: what happened was that Crowley’s hand brought food to his mouth, and Aziraphale realised too late that he was far from indifferent to it.

Why was the idea of Crowley giving him food so… Aziraphale didn’t have the word, didn’t  _ want  _ the word, didn’t need it, because it was nothing.

In an attempt to hide his confusion, he reflexively bit on the pastry, making the situation snowball from unsettling to downright alarming. Yes, he focused on something else, but that something else was food, and excellent food at that. And he always had a strong reaction to good food. Passionate, some might say.

He was certain Crowley could feel everything, and that thought made him even more embarrassed. It  _ was _ his body, after all. 

And indeed, as if on cue…  _ This is fucking weird _ , he heard him think, in a detached, even amused tone. Was he making fun of him? Aziraphale didn’t think so, but the situation needed a clinical detachment that he couldn’t find anywhere in this particular moment.

“I agree,” was all that he could say.

_ Abort? _

Aziraphale hoped his relief wasn’t too evident. “It seems wise,” he blurted, and yanked himself from Crowley’s body without a second thought.

He ignored the regret he was filled with as soon as he abandoned the warm, safe haven of Crowley’s body. Then almost shouted in frustration when he caught himself thinking of Crowley’s body that way.

He needed distance. He needed time. Most of all, he needed a break from all this.

So he took one.

* * *

Sound was the first thing to come back to him when he felt ready to pop into existence again. The sounds he heard were, in particular, kids shouting and ignoring a woman’s pleas to calm down.

“I hope digestives are fine, my dear. I’m behind schedule with my grocery shopping, as you can imagine,” the woman’s voice added.

_ Tracy.  _ Aziraphale opened his eyes.

It was his sister, Tracy. He was in her home, her kitchen. He looked at the messy counter, the sink overflowing with dirty dishes and the cupboards and fridge covered in children’s drawings, some of them made by the same hand that wrote his name on an angel wing mug. His sister and her afterschool gang of children. 

He remembered.

One thing was different, though. Tracy placed a silver tray in front of Crowley, who was sitting on the edge of the chair, bouncing his leg, with the face of a person whose regrets were starting to pile on one another.

In the next room, a group of primary-school-aged kids was playing a game that involved a lot of yelling. Aziraphale  _ remembered  _ them. His heart was so full of love for them — bright Adam, headstrong Pepper, loyal Brian, smart Wensleydale — that he was lucky he doesn’t didn’t have to worry about heart problems, at the moment.

Or ever, if the conversation he overheard was true.

He didn’t mean to vanish. He didn’t mean  _ not _ to, either, to be fair. If he was being honest with himself, he… panicked, and quite a bit. He needed time to think, to collect himself, to analyse what happened and make sure he got his ducks in a row. And, just like that, Crowley couldn’t see him anymore.

But Aziraphale never truly went away.

What he had said to Crowley was true: when he wasn’t with him, it was like he didn’t exist. And he  _ needed _ to exist, if he was going to find a way to get out of this mess.

He almost made himself visible again when Crowley had called him in the kitchen, after his phone call. He could sense his concern clearly as the worry lines on his face. But that was exactly what had stopped him. 

That, and the “angel”. Aziraphale had been staggered by it. And, until he could understand  _ why _ , he would keep to himself.

“It’s no trouble,” Crowley was saying, gingerly dunking a digestive in his tea. With his black shirt and equally dark jeans, he looked so out of place among the pastels and the frills of Tracy’s kitchen, with its powder blue and pink furniture and the children’s drawings. At least he had had the grace of taking his glasses off, perching them on the top of his head.

Aziraphale saw the moment Crowley noticed the cup Tracy herself was taking a sip from. “He has one that looks almost exactly like that. He has his name on it, too. But his has got angel wings.”

Tracy didn’t miss a beat. “I won the jackpot with the unicorn one, didn’t I? Adam made them for us years ago. He’s one of the little hellspawns wreaking havoc in my living room right now. Children!” she shouted, making Crowley — and also Aziraphale — recoil. “Keep it down, honeybees, please. Where were we? Oh, right, you were telling me about how my brother’s ghost is talking to you.”

“Not anymore, apparently.” Crowley slid a little more on the edge of the chair, knees bent and back hunched. Aziraphale remembered enough about being in his body to know he would regret that. “I’m here because I’ve heard you want to terminate his life support. I’m a doctor. I could give you a second opinion on that, if you like.”

Aziraphale was so busy staring nonplussed at Crowley that he almost missed Tracy’s icy reply. “This information is very confidential. I don’t know who told you that…”

“Is it true?” Crowley interrupted her.

Tracy could sense his urgency as much as Aziraphale. She lowered her mug and placed it on the counter. “Yes,” she answered, slowly. “My brother’s situation… He wouldn’t want to be like this. He told me. I’m just doing his will.”

Crowley’s eyes narrowed. “Sounds a lot like you’re convincing yourself.”

“I beg you not to question my choices in matters that do not concern you.”

“No, I overstepped, I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve seen it happen before.”

Tracy’s long, painted nails tapped on the counter. She pondered for a short time, then looked at Crowley again. “I’m sorry, I can’t change my mind based on a ghost story. It’s not an easy decision. I’m sure you understand.”

Crowley’s shoulders slumped even more as he sighed. He wiped the crumbs from his hands and stood up. “Well, uhm… Yeah. Have a nice evening, Tracy. Wish we could have met in better circumstances.”

Frowning, Aziraphale’s sister watched him walk to the front door, where he stopped before grabbing the handle. “Do you, by any chance, happen to know where the bookshop’s fuse box is?”

* * *

If eyerolls could kill, the one the Waterstones’ employee gave Crowley when she saw him entering the bookstore’s occultism section would have been the last thing he saw. 

Not that Crowley seemed to care. “I need your help,” he said.

The employee slammed on a nearby table the pile of books she was in the process of shelving and put her fists on her hips. “You know you can’t keep coming here to bother me without even buying anything, right?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t a life and death situation,  _ believe me _ . And I bought a million pounds worth of books the first time I was here!”

The employee’s scowl didn’t go away, but she lowered her hands. She looked at Crowley with a strange expression. “Something happened.”

“Yes.”

“It wasn’t a question.” She made a disgusted noise. “Fine, I’m listening.”

Crowley briskly brought her up to date. “And I know which hospital he’s in,” he added, surprising both Aziraphale and the employee.

“Did his sister tell you?”

“No, there was a note on the fridge, next to the children’s drawings. It’s…” Crowley sighed. “It’s the hospital I used to work in. If I can’t convince his sister, then I’ll have to take him away from there.”

Aziraphale couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

The employee seemed uncomfortable. “Dude, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Do you have a better one? They’re going to kill him. If they haven’t already. I… I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

There was something fragile in his voice that Aziraphale couldn’t recognise.

It didn’t elude the employee, though. “Ugh. Fine. What if you can’t convince the sister?”

Crowley took a deep breath and made an  _ I-can’t-believe-what-I’m-about-to-say  _ grimace. “That’s why I need you to bring a van.”

“A van?”

“A delivery van. Do you have one on hand?”

“No, I don’t have one  _ on hand _ , it’s not chapstick.” The employee pursed her lips. “Let me make a phone call.”

* * *

They were at home again — when did Aziraphale start to think of it as “home” for the both of them? Something went really wrong, at some point — when he decided he’d had enough. It was time to put his foot down and stop whatever foolish plan Crowley was clearly concocting.

“Please, don’t do it.”

Crowley didn’t miss a beat when Aziraphale spoke. They were in the kitchen, where Crowley was sitting at the table, tapping away at his laptop. He didn’t even look away from the screen. “Life or death, angel,” he said, somewhat absentmindedly. “Not the time to be fussy.”

“I’m not  _ fussy _ , I’m worried about you.”

That got his attention at last. Crowley looked at him, and without sunglasses the sheer intensity in his eyes almost made Aziraphale reel. “Then why did you go away?  _ You’re _ worried? I have been  _ obsessed  _ by this. Look, whatever I did to make you go away, I’m sorry. Can you forget it long enough to work with me, here? I’m trying to save your life.”

Aziraphale had nothing to say to that.

“Did it feel so bad?” asked Crowley after a while, looking at the monitor again but clearly not  _ looking _ at it.

A forlorn sigh escaped Aziraphale’s lips. “Not at all. That’s the problem.”

Forgetting the laptop once more, Crowley stood up. “What?”

Aziraphale looked at the ceiling. For inspiration, and also hoping to be struck by lighting and be spared the ordeal of answering. “It felt… good. Right. It shouldn’t have.”

Crowley snorted. “How can you tell? What’s the benchmark, here? Do you have a book of ghost etiquette somewhere?”

Aziraphale ignored the jibe. “Common sense, I’d say! It shouldn’t feel good to  _ possess  _ someone!”

“That’s a rule you’ve literally just made up! Why do you let it make you feel bad? Why can’t you make your own rules, this time? Or, better, forget rules entirely?” He stopped, short of breath. “Please, don’t disappear on me again.”

Those words alone would have broken Aziraphale’s heart, but Crowley’s face as he was saying them forced him to turn around and hide his own expression. It was for the better. It was the worst time to get attached. “I thought that was all you wanted,” he whispered.

Crowley didn’t say anything. After a while, Aziraphale heard him shut the laptop close and take his keys from where he left them, on the kitchen table. His footsteps echoed down the hall, then Aziraphale heard the front door open and close.

He stood petrified for a few minutes, waiting for the fading sensation that took him every time he and Crowley were far apart. 

But it didn’t come. Instead, he heard a noise. Then another. 

They were coming from under him.

The bookshop.

Aziraphale didn’t waste time with the stairs: all it took was a thought, and in a blink of an incorporeal eye he was standing in the middle of his bookshop, at the centre of the antique rug. The lights were on, showing dusty surfaces and cobwebs that hadn’t been there before. Mostly.

Another noise drew Aziraphale’s attention to the front window, where he saw Crowley pulling at one of the boards until it came away. The first one was already propped against one of the entrance pillars.

Aziraphale watched him with growing concern and waited for the racket to subside to ask: “Crowley, what are you doing?”

“Making a contingency plan,” he answered, without stopping, without looking at him. “If this goes all pear-shaped. I am not going to lose you. I am not going to let you die. But.” His breath was still short, both from the exertion and from some sort of emotion, which was clear in his voice. (Aziraphale  _ still _ couldn’t pinpoint it. He wouldn’t look too close at it. He didn’t want it to be desperation.) “If… if you… It won’t be like last time. I won’t let it. I will speak to Tracy and convince her to let me take over the bookshop.”

The tears that filled Aziraphale’s eyes weren’t real. He had to remind himself that as he wiped them away, quickly, before Crowley could see. When he was reasonably sure his voice would be steady, he said, softly: “You don’t know the first thing about running a bookshop.”  _ You stupid, wonderful man. _

Crowley took away the last of the boards and cleaned his hands on his jeans. “Then we better make sure you survive.” The lightbulbs were superfluous now that the sunlight was pouring in from outside. Crowley looked around. “It’s a mess in here,” he observed, after a moment.

Aziraphale opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I know,” he admitted, casting a defeated glance around. “I’d love to say this isn’t how it usually looks, but it would be a bit of an overstatement.”

“If you like it this way, we’ll keep it this way.” Crowleys’ determination in using the first-person plural didn’t waver.

Aziraphale’s throat felt constricted and he coughed. “You’ll change your mind when you see the ledger, I’m afraid.”

At that, Crowley chuckled. “Let’s go upstairs. Ali… Ana… Book Girl will be here soon and I need to ask you one last thing before we go.”

* * *

Those words kept replaying in Aziraphale’s mind, bouncing from one synapse to the other in a vain attempt to divinate their meaning. What else could there be? Aziraphale stood in front of the kitchen counter, interlacing and disentangling his fingers, each minute bringing him closer to snapping. He took a deep breath, willing his heartbeat to slow down, useless as it may have been.

Crowley was pacing around in the kitchen. When he carded his fingers through his hair, the hem of the dark grey cotton shirt he wore rose up, revealing his waist. Aziraphale paid no attention whatsoever to that inch or so of milky white skin, to the bare suggestion of dark red hair above his belt buckle, nor to the shallow dips in Crowley’s lower back.

He huffed, angry at himself. Distracted by such frivolities. A part of him had always known that Crowley was attractive — and he was, aggressively so, despite (or maybe because of) his perpetual unkempt state —, but it was not the  _ time  _ to have epiphanies of that sort.

Crowley heard him huffing and turned towards him, but instead of the vexed comeback Aziraphale expected, he sat down on a chair with a queasy look. “I don’t think I can go into that hospital.” He said those words one after the other in a single, shaky breath, and then he made a self-deprecating laugh, as if surprised that he managed to say them at all.

Oh. So the nervous pacing, the long silence… He had changed his mind. Aziraphale supposed it was fair. He didn’t have the right to ask anything of him. He didn’t ask him anything to begin with, actually: it had been Crowley’s plan all along, and if his trauma turned out to be too big of an obstacle, well. Aziraphale would have to respect that. “I see,” he said. Then he steadied himself and looked at him. “I’m very sorry to hear it. You’ve been kind and helpful, and I will always…”

Crowley raised his voice, interrupting him. “You’ll have to do it.” His mouth quirked in a lopsided smile. He was still  _ sans  _ sunglasses, and his eyes were pleading.

It took Aziraphale a few seconds to understand. “Oh, no.” His voice came out low and menacing. “Out of the question.”

“It’s the only way.” Crowley’s tone was placid, reasonable. How dare he come across as the sensible one in this circumstance?

“I won’t do it. Categorically. Do not ask me again.”

* * *

_ Unlock my phone _ , said Crowley’s voice in the back of his mind.

Aziraphale straightened their back — something Crowley’s body was hardly built to do, but he did his best — and looked down at the device on the table.

_ Come on, I know how to do it, you should, too _ . Crowley sounded way too excited for the experiment he had set up.  _ I’m thinking about it right now. _

Aziraphale raised a hand. They were testing communication and coordination. One thing was possessing Crowley in an empty restaurant for two minutes; walking around and talking to people in a way that wouldn’t be suspicious was entirely another.

On the other hand, if Aziraphale was bent on ruining Crowley’s foolish plan for good, this would have been the perfect occasion. If he proved that the ruse couldn’t work, they could swim back to more sensible shores, such as…

Nothing. Nothing was the answer.

“I am just waiting for the end to come, aren’t I?” Aziraphale murmured using Crowley’s lips, his vocal cords, his tongue.

Something of his musings must have slipped into Crowley’s consciousness, because the man wasn’t surprised.  _ Not if I have anything to say about it. _

“Crowley…”

_ I won’t let you die.  _ Crowley laughed briefly, a tingle in the back of Aziraphale’s mind.  _ Did you know that I couldn’t even say the word, after Eve? I couldn’t bear to think about it. About death. _

“What changed?” asked Aziraphale, confused.

_ Rented this flat. Met you. _

Aziraphale sighed. He sensed something else behind Crowley’s words, although he couldn’t pinpoint what. It was like hearing a colour. With an odd certainty, he recognised it as the strange emotion that moved the bookstore girl, that made Tracy tempted to trust him. Whatever it was, it told him that he was sincere.

He picked up the phone from the table, pressed a button on the side and swiped a wriggly line through a dotted grid. “We’re ready, I think.”

He felt Crowley’s smile.  _ I think so, too, angel. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Gilligan cuts.


	5. Chapter 5

_ Crowley, two months later _

The doorbell chimed the same instant Crowley’s phone started ringing.

“Hang on a second!” he screamed from the back of the empty bookshop while the opera bit of  _ Bohemian Rhapsody _ blared from his back pocket. 

The book he was trying to put back on the highest shelf of the tallest bookcase had apparently grown in size, or his mates had multiplied in the ten minutes it had taken a potential client to leaf through it and decide it wasn’t what they were looking for, after all. Intellectually, Crowley knew it was an occupational hazard, but it didn’t make it less of a pain in the arse.

In any case, there was no way the book was going to fit on that shelf. Crowley would have to climb on the ancient stepladder to investigate why, and he wasn’t eager to, since the ladder looked more like a museum piece than a functional piece of furniture and Crowley half suspected it was just supposed to be ornamental, and—

The phone kept ringing.  _ Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening.  _ There hadn’t been any of that in the past two months, during which a lovely spring had turned into a balmy summer.

Crowley fished the annoying device from his back pocket as he put the heavy volume on the desk nearby, glaring at it through his sunglasses, making it clear that this was just an armistice, not the end of the war. He tapped the green circle on the screen without even reading the caller’s I.D. while scratching his beard with the other hand. (A recent experiment, an itchy one. He was still on the fence about it. He thought about shaving it off at least fifteen times a day, but in the end he never did.)

Afternoons were becoming quite a warm affair in the bookshop, as the season progressed. Crowley was seldom still, since he never ran out of things to do. The opposite, if anything. The old shop had a sort of run-down, dusty charm, but he’d rather it didn’t fall to pieces entirely. So he watched a bunch of YouTube videos to learn how to reattach mouldings and fix bookshelves and so on. The shop was so rarely visited that he could take care of the lighter upkeep during opening hours. The nice shirt he wore the first day ended up hanging on the clothes tree within five minutes. Black jeans and his most presentable t-shirts were good enough, and as his hair was getting longer, he had started to keep it tied. Add the probably-ill-advised beard, and he couldn’t look more incongruous if he tried.

He brought the phone to his ear as he walked to the front of the shop, where the doorbell had chimed again when the door had closed. “Hello?”

“Hello, dearie,” said a velvety voice on the phone. “It’s Tracy.”

Tracy. His landlady. The owner of the bookshop he was in, technically. The person he somehow managed to convince he was qualified enough to take over a business he wasn’t even remotely qualified for. (He was doing all right, okay? He had been a brain surgeon. Figuring this shit out only required time and stubbornness, and he had plenty of both.) Tracy, the woman who had basically adopted him, after. He must have offered quite a pitiful sight for her to take him under her wing, much like the schoolchildren she gathered in her home. (It had taken them a week to accept that gaunt, sarcastic addition to their group, and two for Crowley to have his own scribbled mug. He had frowned at the snake-shaped handle and had thanked his lucky stars the sunglasses hid his entirely hypothetical misty eyes.) Tracy, Aziraphale’s sister.

Crowley’s motor functions came to an abrupt halt. Pushing his heart from his throat back into his chest took him a moment. It was the journey it usually took whenever his thoughts wandered too closely to the events of two months ago (two months already! How time flies), and Crowley was learning how to deal with it. Some days it went better than others.

Tracy felt compelled to fill the silence. “I’m sorry if this is not a good moment, and for the short notice, too, but there’s something I need to tell you.”

Heart back in its place, Crowley now had to force his feet to remember how that whole walking business worked. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, no, dearheart, absolutely not. I’m not supposed to tell you anything, according to the real estate agent, but it didn’t feel right. You see, the lease of the flat…”

Tracy kept talking, but her words all blurred into white noise when Crowley finally reached the front room of the shop and saw who had come through the door. 

The phone clattered on the floor.

* * *

_ Aziraphale, two months earlier _

“You’re nervous,” he whispered, while the van was taking them to the hospital.

Honestly, Aziraphale was a bit on edge too. It was mainly due to the fact that the young man at the wheel — a nervous chap named Newton — was currently more focused on listening to his girlfriend explaining the situation to him than on driving. And, really, Aziraphale couldn’t blame him.

He would have offered words of reassurance, but his attention was elsewhere. He could feel Crowley in the back of his mind, his consciousness shaking, his composure razor-thin. It made him want to offer some sort of reassurance. Pat the man’s back or something. Bit of an impasse, that.

_ Ha.  _ Aziraphale could imagine him pacing up and down.  _ You should have noticed, by now. I’m always nervous. ’S my default state. _

“You can guide me through your plan again, if you want.”

_ No, I think three times are enough. And it’s not much of a plan, either. _

Aziraphale took a deep breath, both for his sake and Crowley’s. He felt strangely calm, maybe because he felt compelled to offset Crowley’s unrest. An equal and opposite reaction. He pressed a hand on Crowley’s sternum —  _ their _ sternum. There. A strong heartbeat echoed under all of those bones. “Can you feel it?”

_ Y-yes _ , said Crowley, after a beat.

Aziraphale took a deep, steading breath. “I have faith in you. And, since we’re at it, I suppose I’m also very grateful that you, of all people, are the one who could see me.”

_ The one with a hospital badge that probably still works, you mean? _

Aziraphale had never wanted to smack someone on the head so much. But he could see how such a course of action would backfire, at the moment. He pressed harder instead. “The one who cared. The one with a heart. You’re a good person, Anthony Crowley.”

Strangeness. A whirlwind of electricity at the back of his mind. Something warm, flustered, in the middle.  _ Sure, tell the whole world. _

“I’m telling  _ you _ , you stupid, brave man.” Aziraphale let the hand fall back on Crowley’s thigh, palm down. He was the first to be surprised by how much he felt at home, wrapped inside Crowley’s bony frame.

He tried to suffocate the question pressing on his lips —  _ what if I could stay? Will you have me?  _ It was unfair. It was selfish. It was impossible. It was bad etiquette, if nothing else, after all the grief he had given Crowley about squatting in his flat. “I hope your plan works,” he whispered.

* * *

_ Crowley, two months later _

No amount of YouTube tutorials could give Crowley any idea on how to fix the short-circuit happening in his brain at that moment.

The man had his back to Crowley, but there was no way the old-fashioned camel coat and those short, downy curls could belong to someone else.

Aziraphale was in front of him. He was in the shop. His shop. He was there, looking both lost and a natural addition to the landscape. It was his first time back in the shop after he woke up, after all.

He looked taller than Crowley remembered.

He wanted to do something, say something. His mind was completely blank. He wasn’t sure he could function anymore. He had serious doubts he could do this. He should make an excuse, retreat, hide in the backroom, cross the Channel.

Then Aziraphale turned around and saw him.

Crowley opened his mouth to say something, anything.  _ Heya, angel. How have you been? You look fantastic. Brushes with death clearly agree with you.  _ For a second, he thought he could do it, be his flippant and nonchalant self and turn it all into a joke, bring them back where they were before the trip to the hospital.

But the slow, partial recognition in Aziraphale’s eyes, the tentative politeness that betrayed the blank slate his memory had turned into, those were undeniable.

For a long moment, neither of them said anything. Then, to his deep and everlasting dread, Crowley felt a single tear spilling from his right eye and run down his cheek. Maybe the sunglasses would be enough of a cover. Maybe…

“Crowley,” said a voice he had given up hearing ever again.

It was not fair. He had spent days, weeks, months trying to convince himself that Aziraphale being alive was enough, that it was  _ fine _ , he didn’t have the right to ask more…

A single, hesitant step towards him. A raised hand. A question mark at the end of his name, uttered a second time: “Dr. Crowley? Anthony Crowley?”

He tried to hide a sniff. His nose was leaking. Perfect. “Yes.” His voice sounded like it had been through a meat grinder. He cleared his throat, looking at the man he… he… “Yes.” Better. “That’s me. Just Crowley, though.”

Brow knitted, Aziraphale blinked rapidly. “I don’t… Oh, I am so sorry to barge in like this. You… you have to know that they have told me everything. Tracy, Anathema…”

It was Crowley’s turn to frown. “Who?”

“You know her. She was outside the hospital when… the day that you…”

_ Oh. _ So  _ that  _ was Book Girl’s name. “Oh, yes. Yes, I know her.”

“And I understand that I owe you.” 

Crowley’s heart somersaulted in his chest. Did Aziraphale… remember? Was he talking about… 

But the other man cast another look around, noticing the little changes in the shop. The pile of books were a little straighter, the shelves a little neater. “Tracy told me you've been running things around here in my absence.”

_ Yeah, I promised you. Remember?  _ Crowley bit his tongue. He wished to be somewhere else, although he felt at the exact centre of the universe. He could have sworn that the pull of gravity was stronger there than in any other place on Earth. He wasn’t sure he could leave even if he wanted. The weight of his longing was creating a black hole.

He shook his head. Nonsense. “You don’t owe me anything, angel.”

Aziraphale turned his head abruptly. “What did you call me?”

If only he had a shovel, he could finish digging up the hole and cover himself up with dirt once and for all. Crowley shook his head again, raising his hands. “Listen, I don’t know what Tracy told you, or what you remember of that day, but…”

“I want to,” Aziraphale interrupted him, eager, surprising even himself by taking a step forward. “Remember, that is. I thought… Would it be a terrible imposition if I asked you to tell me what happened?”

Even if he knew it was dangerous, Crowley took his sunglasses off. He needed to look,  _ really  _ look at him.

It was surreal, the knowledge that he could have reached out and felt him under his fingertips, all the corduroy, the velvet, the smooth texture of his bowtie. He could have leaned in and smelled the scent of his aftershave. He wanted to. He clenched his fists to keep himself from touching him. He wanted to look at Aziraphale until they both got sick of it, to thread his fingers through his hair, trace the line of his nose up to where it tipped slightly upwards at the end. He wanted to know what living with him in the flesh was like. Which songs did he hum while he shaved? Did he like to take long, hot showers? Which side of the bed did he prefer? He wanted to know what poems and books he would quote next, if his laugh changed when he was tipsy. He wanted to buy him breakfast and lunch and dinner, and to cook for him when they didn’t feel like going out.

Crowley shoved all those thoughts under the carpet and then set it on fire, for good measure. This was the end. Aziraphale was fine, now, and he had come around to… what? Inform him he was taking the shop and the flat back? To thank him for everything and gently show him the door, politely ushering him out of his life?

Crowley waited for him to say something. But Aziraphale just looked at him, and kept looking, with the stubborn concentration he no doubt reserved to typos or obscure crossword definitions. Crowley shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

He was opening his mouth to fill the silence with some inanity when Aziraphale said: “This is going to sound very strange, but… I know we’ve never met. Before the hospital, I mean. I have nonetheless the feeling that we know each other. I wouldn’t have mentioned it if it wasn’t so… so strong.”

Something was stuck in Crowley’s throat. It had fangs and claws and he spoke through it, even if it hurt. “Like a dream,” Crowley said, feeling dizzy. He needed to go lie down, maybe for a year or two.

Aziraphale lit up. “Yes, exactly.” He stood there, eyes wide, lips slightly parted, a sight so familiar and so new at the same time. 

“So, what? You want to know my side of the story?”

“I’d really hate to impose.”

“Well, technically I’m the one who’s imposing. We’re in  _ your  _ bookshop.”

“Which you’ve been taking care of, on top of everything else you did for me.” Aziraphale shook his head. “Why? What could I ever have done to deserve this?”

Had breathing always been so complicated? Had his heartbeat always been this loud and erratic? Crowley shifted his weight, leaning against one of the bookshop’s columns.

It wasn’t the first time Aziraphale asked that question. And Crowley remembered the answer he gave him then so clearly that he could still taste the words into his mouth.

* * *

_ Aziraphale, two months earlier _

Aziraphale moved a tentative step towards the man in the bed. “That's me. It’s really me.”

He had barely glanced at the array of whirring and beeping machinery in the room, at the windowsill overflowing with flowers, photos and stacks of books. (Tracy, no doubts. He had no friends, remember?) The body in the bed commanded his attention entirely. 

He hadn’t looked in a mirror in a while, but that wasn’t the reason why he couldn’t recognise himself straight away.

“I look horrible.” Those words were a hoarse whisper.

_ You don’t. You look fine.  _

“That’s kind of you to say, Crowley, but…”

_ Listen, you’ve been in a coma for three months. _ The bluntness of Crowley’s words was tempered by the softness in his tone.  _ Who’s the expert, here? Let  _ me  _ be the judge of how bad you look. _

Aziraphale scoffed, then he started fidgeting, which seemed the true calling of the body he inhabited. “This is real.”

_ I know, angel. _

“What do we do, now?”

_ Well, first…  _

He never knew what would have been the first thing. Even if Crowley had explained his plan to him, improvisation was a huge part of it. The door opened and a woman in a white coat stepped inside, looking at a medical chart, gasping when she realised she wasn’t alone with her patient, as she was clearly expecting. “Who are you?” Then she narrowed her eyes as her expression turned from alarmed to nonplussed. “Crowley?”

Everything had gone unexpectedly smooth up until that point. They had left Anathema and her confused boyfriend in the van and snuck into the hospital from a back door, since Crowley’s old badge apparently still activated the scanner on the lock (a convenient clerical error, Crowley remarked, because despite everything he still refused to say the word “providence”). The woman at the nurse’s station hadn’t recognised him and had helpfully mentioned Dr. Michael, on the third floor. Following Crowley’s directions, Aziraphale had taken the stairs to the third floor and borrowed (he had won the discussion that had led to the choice of that verb) an ill-fitting coat from the supply closet, along with a gurney and handful of medical supplies he couldn’t make heads or tails of, but that Crowley insisted were necessary. Traversing the corridors at a brisk pace — as per Crowley’s advice:  _ if you have a coat on and you act like you have somewhere to go quickly, everybody will be too busy getting out of your way to even look at your face  _ —, they had popped their head into a couple of rooms until they had found the right one.

_ Fuck. That’s Michael. Fuck. She knows me. _

That much was clear. Aziraphale took a step back. “Uhm, I…  _ What do I do? _ ” he muttered under his breath.

Looking seconds away from calling security, Dr. Michael shifted the medical record she was holding from one hand to the other. “Crowley, what are you doing here? I thought you were on sick leave.”

_ Fuck, fuck. Uhm. Tell her I was _ .

“I-I was. I was just… passing by.”

_ What? Don’t improvise! _

“What?” echoed Michael, frowning.

_ Tell her I’ve heard of your case. _

“He has… I mean,  _ I  _ have heard of this case. From Dr. Sandalphon, at Memorial,” Aziraphale added, following Crowley’s cue. “Thought it was worth examining.”

Dr. Michael cocked her head. “Is that so. Why didn’t you come to see me first, since it’s my patient we’re talking about?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth, but Crowley was quiet. More and more seconds passed, as the air between them grew heavier and heavier, until…  _ Ah, fuck it. Let me speak to her. _

“Are you sure?” whispered Aziraphale.

_ No. But I’ll do it anyway. _

Aziraphale would have put up more resistance, but one look at Dr. Michael’s face convinced him to take a metaphysical step back. One moment later, he was looking at Crowley’s back. 

The man shuddered as a shiver ran down his spine. He ran a hand on his face with a disgusted noise and took a shaky breath. “Right. About that.”

Much to his frustration, there was nothing Aziraphale could do to help him, and now that he was back in his incorporeal form, he heard a siren’s call that was impossible to ignore. He turned around, tuning out the discussion between the two doctors, and went by the bed, to look at his own sallow face behind the plastic mask.

He had no idea how long he had been standing like that. He knew that Crowley and the other doctor kept talking, arguing. Then Crowley raised his voice, yanking Aziraphale away from his own thoughts. “What do you mean  _ now _ ?”

Dr. Michael spoke in a whisper. “Yes, his sister is coming around to say goodbye.” She checked her watch. “Should be here any moment, now.”

“Can’t you postpone it?”

“Have you lost your mind?”

Crowley let out a frustrated sigh and started to pace back and forth. “Michael, what would you do if I told you I may have a way to save this man’s life?”

“I’d remind you that the psych ward is on the fourth floor, obviously.”

“Please.” Crowley stopped in front of her. “I know this man. I… I thought he was dead. But…” He turned around, not looking at the body in the bed but in Aziraphale’s eyes. “It was me that was dead, and he brought me back. He saved me, and now it’s my turn to save him.”

Aziraphale had always been a man of words. He loved them, collected them, cherished them and the intrinsic power of a well-thought-out observation, a kind remark or, if the situation required it, a sharp jab. He prided himself on having the right word at the right time on every occasion. He was lucky Crowley had no idea of that, or he would have probably been flattered by the fact that his declaration had reduced Aziraphale to a gasping, wordless, heartbroken pillar of salt.

A sudden, hot rush of anger flooded through him. Why? Why would some inescapable, uncaring force in the universe jump through hoops to put Crowley in his life, only to make it impossible for them to be together?

Crowley didn’t wait for an answer and looked back at Dr. Michael. “Please.”

The other doctor narrowed her eyes and studied him for a long moment. Maybe Crowley was really that convincing, maybe Dr. Michael was softer than she looked, or maybe she saw that  _ thing _ in his eyes, the one that had swayed a thousand reluctant helpers in Crowley’s unlikely quest. “I am going to make a short round of my patients for the next ten minutes. Pity we didn’t run into each other, I would have loved to say hello,” she said in a tone that implied the exact opposite, then she pointed her chin to the bed. “Say goodbye and leave before anybody sees you.” 

For a second, Crowley looked on the verge of hugging her, or something equally unconscionable, and his hands did an uncertain little dance before he stuffed them in the coat’s pockets and settled on a gruff “thank you” instead.

Michael dismissed him with a wave of her hand and went away, closing the door behind her.

Crowley waited until she was out of the room before turning around and walking to the bed with a sudden urgency. “We don’t have much time. Where did you put the stuff I told you to take?” 

Aziraphale pointed to the gurney he had left beside the bed with a portable ventilator and a pressure cuff on it, and then, wringing his hands, he stared at Crowley from the opposite side of the bed. “Did your colleague tell you what happened?”

Crowley’s mouth was set in a firm line as he removed the mask and replaced it with its portable version with brisk and careful movements. It was a new version of him, efficient and competent, someone who knew what to do, who had the situation under control. At least until you saw how his hands trembled, or the sheen of sweat on his brow. “More or less. In layman’s terms, the problem is that you won’t wake up.”

“That simple?” Aziraphale could almost let himself believe that everything would be okay, if it weren’t for the undercurrent of panic in Crowley’s voice. He was this close to losing it, and everything bad that happened to him would be Aziraphale’s fault.

“That simple, and that hard.” Crowley applied the pressure cuff, then he went back to the door, opening it and checking that the road was clear.

Aziraphale lost his battle against second thoughts. “Crowley, it’s not too late to give up.”

“Do you really think I’d sit on my bloody hands and let them take your life?” Crowley was whispering, but his voice was closer to a growl. He looked in Aziraphale’s eyes again. The only man who could see him. “You really have no idea, do you?”

“I don’t understand.” The solution was somewhere in front of Aziraphale, but he could not grasp it.

“I’m more than ready to kidnap you and put you in that van, if that means saving your life,” Crowley went on. “I would do  _ anything  _ for you.”

“Why?” Aziraphale whispered.

In lieu of answering, Crowley took his hand — his actual hand, flesh and bone and skin. A dusting of hair on the back, chubby fingers with short, square nails. Crowley held it like it was something precious, which made it all the more surprising when a blunt force hit Aziraphale square in the chest so hard that he staggered backwards, because he  _ felt it, he felt something, he was feeling it, for the first time since he could recall.  _ “I feel it,” he gasped. “I feel you.”

Crowley squeezed his hand and let it go. “I’m putting you on that stretcher and taking you out of here. As far as we know, your body is the only thing keeping you tethered. And I really, really would rather live in a world where you're around.”

* * *

_ Crowley, two months later _

“Do you remember anything about what happened?”

When Crowley had offered him tea, earlier — new priority: sort out this tendency to say the first thing that came to mind when panicking — Aziraphale had accepted without the smallest hesitation. “Well, to be more precise, I would be offering myself tea,” he had added then, the barest hint of a smile on his lips, and Crowley had to clasp his hands behind his back, hard.

Shop closed for the day, they sat in the kitchen upstairs. Or rather, Aziraphale occupied a chair, while Crowley ended up leaning against the counter, much like the first time Anathema came around for her sort-of séance.

They had started talking and forgot about the tea.

Flattening his hands on the table, Aziraphale shook his head. “I remember everything up until… everything went dark. And then I remember waking in the hospital, and people were screaming.”

Crowley made a grimace. “Yeah, sorry ’bout that.”

He was probably imagining the pink blush on Aziraphale’s cheeks. “You were there.” 

_ Yeah, angel,  _ Crowley wanted to say _ , I fucking know _ . He remembered the moments that led up to Aziraphale’s awakening so well he could have painted them in a bloody fresco on the kitchen’s ceiling. He cringed when he thought about Michael and Tracy spotting him just outside Aziraphale’s room. His former colleague had yelled at him to stop, but he had run faster, pushing the gurney down the hall towards the lifts and ignoring the ghost fretting beside him.

It hadn’t worked out, in the end. Obviously. Living with Aziraphale had been a short, baffling vacation in a world where miracles happened and his existence had some vague meaning. It was enough to convince a poor sod that he could pull off something like that.

His bruised ribs definitely remembered the moment security had tackled him, yanking Aziraphale’s ventilator off in the process. And an even more bruised part of his heart ached when he recalled looking up from the floor and locking eyes with Aziraphale, who was confused and terrified and then simply not there.

“No,” he had said. “No!” Louder. “ _ Aziraphale! _ ”

Crowley rubbed his chest, as if doing so could ease the pressure inside of it. He had yelled some more, even if he didn’t remember exactly what, and then he had somehow escaped the guard’s grip and scrambled to his feet, leaning above Aziraphale’s body, a pale, lonely figure on the gurney.

He noticed he was digging his nails into his palms and took a deep breath, flexing his fingers while he counted up to four, then exhaling the same way. At Tracy’s insistence, he had been seeing another therapist, and this time he didn’t just go through the motions. Tracy had started calling him regularly, asking baffling questions about his well-being, and insisted he came around once a week for tea. Bullshitting the woman on a weekly basis was just too much of an effort to be worth it. Crowley refused to sugarcoat it, though. He was constantly one minor inconvenience away from smashing stuff on the floor and he always felt like screaming. For some reason, the consensus was that it was a good, even healthy reaction. Both Tracy and the shrink thought he was making progress.

What a notion.

“I figure you want your shop and your flat back.” He couldn’t help but laugh at the mortified look on Aziraphale’s face. “Don’t worry, I won’t make the slightest fuss.”  _ Let me take you to dinner, just once. I will let you choose the restaurant. You know more about these things, I’d just look up the Guardian’s reviews and pick at random. Let me carry things for you, let me touch your back while I hold the door open, let me have these breadcrumbs.  _ “Don’t worry, I’ll disappear, if that’s what you want. Will never bother you.”

The gears whirring in Aziraphale’s mind were almost audible. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why were you in the hospital? Why did you go out of your way to help me? Why did you…”

_ Why? Because I love you, you idiot. _ The heartache that had been building became almost unbearable as Crowley remembered leaning down and pressing his lips against Aziraphale’s mouth. 

Just your basic CPR. Something that anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of first aid procedures knew how to do.

It hadn’t been true love’s kiss or shite like that. What a silly thing to believe.

Crowley shrugged. His shoulders hurt and he rolled them. He was so tense he could have pierced himself with a needle and no blood would have come out. “I’m just your run of the mill good samaritan. Nothing special, really.” He pushed himself off the counter and, after a second, Aziraphale stood up as well. “Let me know how you intend to proceed. You have my number. Well, Tracy has.” He wondered if he could still have his weekly tea with Aziraphale’s sister, or if it would be too strange, now that he was out of the hospital and would presumably be around often. Too painful and embarrassing for everybody. 

Aziraphale kept standing awkwardly in front of him in what Crowley had briefly thought about as ‘their kitchen’, a thousand years ago. “I have no intention to evict you,” he said softly. “I will stay at my sister’s until you have found another place.”

Ah, well. No more tea time at Tracy’s, then.

“And I’m still in recovery, so I won’t turn down a bit of help in the shop.”

Crowley wanted to laugh at the idea of seeing an oblivious Aziraphale every day. He also wanted to scream and throw stuff on the floor, more than he usually did. “Yeah, turns out I’m not really cut out for this shopkeeping gig. You’ll have to ask someone else. I recommend that Anathema girl.”

“Quite.” With a defeated sigh, Aziraphale extended a hand. “Well, then, Dr. Crowley, I guess I’ll be in contact with you.”

Crowley wished he wouldn’t. That sad politeness was excruciating. He looked down at Aziraphale’s hand, racking his brain for a respectful way to refuse to shake it, because there was no universe in which he could hold Aziraphale’s hand like it didn’t mean anything. There was no way he could be happily resigned to be just an acquaintance, the strange man who almost kidnapped him from a hospital and then practised CPR on him and somehow woke him up from a coma. He was the worst possible Prince Charming, an unlikely hero to a story that didn’t end happily, better luck next time.

But there would be no next time.  _ This may well be the last time you see him _ , he thought.  _ Shake his hand, you bastard. Take at least this off the list of your regrets. _

He reached out. He didn’t need to look down to know that his fingers were trembling.

Something similar to an electric shock danced between their palms when they came into contact and they both flinched. But Crowley couldn’t let go, because Aziraphale was gripping his hand so hard it hurt. Then his legs seemed to give in and Crowley was too busy keeping him from falling to mind anything else.

He didn’t understand a thing of what was happening, other than they somehow ended up on the floor, and Aziraphale was gripping his arms, his shoulders, his face, fingers running through his beard and his hair. “Crowley. Crowley.”

_ That’s me, _ he thought, dumbstruck. He held onto Azirpahale’s wrists when he cupped his face, bringing him so close that Crowley could feel the warm huffs of breath on his skin.

“Crowley, my dear, dear Crowley.” Aziraphale smiled despite the tears. “I remember.”

Crowley knew a lot of things. He knew how the brain worked, the sparks of electricity that travelled from one neuron to another and made the whole thing work. He knew enough about plumbing and panel boards, now, to be a decent handyman. He knew (and didn’t care about) the difference between Cointreau and triple sec, and which itinerary would get you to your destination faster depending on the time of the day.

He knew that, if he didn’t kiss Aziraphale in the next three seconds, he would burst into flames.

He leaned closer, looking into his eyes for a sign to stop, to take everything back and wrap it and toss it away, and be on his way to the nearest galaxy, never to be heard from again.

Instead Aziraphale looked precisely as Crowley was feeling. “Oh, my darling,” he whispered, and then  _ Aziraphale  _ kissed  _ him _ .

Crowley pulled back, ignoring Aziraphale’s surprised protest. There was another thing to get out of the way, before he forgot. “I love you.”

Aziraphale’s disapproving expression turned into something both sweet and teasing. “You do? How interesting.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised as well,” Crowley replied, before kissing him again.

* * *

_ Epilogue _

In the years to come, neither of them remembered very well how they ended up living together, whether it was Aziraphale that moved back to his old flat or Crowley that asked him to stay. Having a physical body came with advantages, but it also made the tiny flat a bit cramped. 

Not that they minded. They spent a lot of time touching, and a few weeks passed before it stopped feeling weird and new and unexpected to feel the other under their fingers. Aziraphale spent his days in the shop and his evenings with his partner. Things definitely looked up, except for a brief mourning period when Crowley had to ditch the beard (Aziraphale was unsure at first, but it grew on him) when he went back to work.

Recovery wasn’t easy for Crowley, but it could have been much, much harder. He was learning to appreciate the good and the bad and how they tempered each other. It wasn’t difficult to appreciate what life had to offer, when he got to spend his weekends in bed ( _ not  _ binging Netflix) or going on trips and walks arm in arm with Aziraphale.

They rarely spoke about those weeks, but Aziraphale knew where Crowley’s thoughts went when his eyes lingered a bit too long on the angel wings mug. And his mind was transparent in turn when he glimpsed the Agnes Nutter they still kept on a shelf. 

It was only fair, now and then, to acknowledge the unconventional circumstances that brought them together and shaped their story.

A ghost story and love story, all in one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you it was going to be fine!
> 
> There are so many people I have to acknowledge and I'll certainly forget someone (if that's you, forgive me): first of all, my partner in crime-slash-artist, Sparvierosart. Seekwill provided me with gentle encouragement and a safe space to scream into the void when I needed it (and keeps doing so). All the lovely participants in the Rom-Com event, and Amanda, who organised all this: you're simply amazing. To everyone who's left a comment and made me cry (I'm looking at you in particular, Saretton, Phantomstardemon and mia-ugly), and you, who are reading this: I love you.
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](https://mllekurtz.tumblr.com/), come tell me things.


End file.
